When Mary Corbet walks into private investigator Jennie Redhead's run-down Oxford office one pleasant spring day in 1974, she is a desperate woman. Although she's convinced her daughter has been murdered, she can get neither the police nor her husband to agree with her. Jennie is not convinced either, but more out of compassion than conviction agrees to take the case. The only clue she has to go on is a fragment of an obscure 17th century poem she finds in Linda's bedroom. But from that one clue Jennie's investigations will lead her beyond the city's dreaming spires to Oxford's darker underbelly, in which lurks a hidden world of privilege, violence and excess.
Blackstone and the Rendezvous with Death is an expertly plotted Victorian mystery that will keep readers guessing to the last page.
The body of a young man fished out of the Thames is of little interest to Londoners caught up in the excitement of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Yet to Inspector Sam Blackstone, the case is as puzzling as any he has ever come across. Why should a corpse dressed the in rags of a commoner have the face of a gentleman? And if this man does belong to noble stock, why has no one come forward to claim the body? As his investigation proceeds, Blackstone finds himself entering the world of the aristocracy. Death seems to stalk him, and as each new clue leads to nothing more than a new murder, Blackstone comes to realize that he is caught up in what may turn out to be the most horrendous crime of the century...
"Spencer is an accomplished craftsman who serves up a good puzzle and deftly solves it with intelligence and insight" PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A series of kidnappings seemed like straightforward, run-of-the-mill crimes at first, but Inspector Sam Blackstone soon realizes they are anything but. This gang is so ruthless that it shocks even the hardened London criminal underworld. And it is plain to Blackstone that this is just a preliminary skirmish - that the gang ultimately intends to play for much larger stakes. But Blackstone's problems are only just beginning. When the son of the visiting Maharajah of Chandrapore is taken in a full-on ambush, Blackstone realises that the previous kidnappings were just practice for a plot that impacts not only Britain, but it's whole Empire. Blackstone finds himself caught up in a game of cat and mouse, frantically trying to pin down the loose threads to find the lost prince before it's too late.
"Spencer is an accomplished craftsman who serves up a good puzzle and deftly solves it with intelligence and insight" PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When a young girl, Jill Harris, is murdered, the case soon becomes personal for Monika Paniatowski. She saw the victim looking distressed only hours before she was killed, and Jill was the same age as her own daughter, Louisa. Driven by guilt and pity, Monika throws herself into the investigation, but both the chief constable, who is away, and Colin Beresford - her right-hand man - think she is too emotionally involved to handle it. What none of them know is that the killer is planning to strike again...
"Another solid outing for Charlie Woodend's worthy successor, whose baggage, like her striking European nose, makes her all the more appealing." - Kirkus Reviews
