The Second Woman
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
An American sleuth in Victorian London investigates the murder of a young Jewish woman in this "complex and gripping period whodunit" (Publishers Weekly).
London, 1901. With the Boer War raging, England's air is crackling with political intrigue. The rumors are so thick that the newly formed British Secret Service can barely keep a lid on. But it's not South Africa that is on everyone's lips. Rather, it's The Jewish Question: The armies of Antisemitism are on the march, even as the call to Zionism echoes through London's East End.
Denton, the famous American expat author, prefers to keep the conflict at arm's length—until his neighbor's murder brings it home. He could stay out of it. He should stay out of it. But . . . but he rather liked the woman. And the police are clueless. So Denton yet again sticks his pointy American nose into England's business. And he keeps it there, even as the price for asking questions gets perilously high.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Cameron's darkly compelling third Denton mystery (after 2010's The Bohemian Girl), the expatriate American novelist and Civil War veteran becomes entangled in 1903 London's racial and social strife. While attending a shooting party in the countryside, Denton receives a telegram from his lover, social worker Janet Striker, summoning him back to the city. Janet who lives in a house adjoining his tells him that a woman's mutilated body has been discovered in his garden. The victim, tentatively identified as Rebecca Shermitz, had just received an abortion from Bernat, a doctor living nearby. Since both victim and suspect are Jewish, fierce anti-Semitic passions are aroused throughout the city, including those of Denton's best friend, Baronet Hector Hench-Rose, who's linked to the Brotherhood of Britons, an anti-immigration group. Denton, helped by his trusted aide, British Army veteran Sergeant Atkins, discovers that the elite London police unit Special Branch may be orchestrating a cover-up. Cameron has crafted a complex and gripping period whodunit.