Spring of Hope
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
When an exhibition featuring London's top engineers results in sudden, violent death, Victorian writer-sleuths Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens investigate.
"Victorian whodunits don’t get much better than this" - Publishers Weekly Starred Review
March, 1859. After the 'Great Stink' of the previous summer when Parliament was overwhelmed by the stench of sewage from the River Thames, and with cholera running rife throughout the city, Charles Dickens has a new enthusiasm. Having formed a firm friendship with Joseph Bazalgette, he is assisting the ambitious young engineer in his efforts to find a solution to London's pollution problem.
Dickens' friend and fellow writer Wilkie Collins meanwhile is distracted by thoughts of his pretty new housekeeper and her charming daughter. But what does he really know of his new employee's past - and just who - or what - is making her so frightened?
During an exhibition to showcase London's top engineers' plans to solve the sewage issue, proceedings are disrupted by a high-pitched, agonised scream - and the discovery of a blood-soaked body; the result - it would appear - of a terrible accident. Dickens however is convinced of foul play, and once again he and Wilkie Collins set about uncovering the shocking truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The prologue of Harrison's superior fourth Gaslight mystery teaming novelists Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens (after 2021's Summer of Secrets), a melancholy letter written by Collins on his deathbed in 1889, sets the stage for flashbacks to 1859. In the wake of the Great Stink of 1858, during which an overwhelmed London sewer system combined with a heat wave to create a persistent foul odor in the metropolis, civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette, a friend of Dickens, is tasked with addressing the problem. But murder interferes, as Collins relates in his letter. During an exhibition of Bazalgette's proposed solution at a gathering attended by notables who include MP Benjamin Disraeli, a man, unidentified in the prologue, is killed in an explosion that sends metal fragments flying. Collins and Dickens, present at the gathering, come to believe the death was no accident and partner up to seek a murderer. Amid clever plot twists, Harrison maintains suspense as the action builds up to the fatal explosion, leaving readers in suspense as to who is killed and why. Collins and Dickens subsequently investigate. Victorian whodunits don't get much better than this.
