UK version
US version
The year is 1837. Queen Victoria, barely eighteen, has just ascended to the throne of England, and a young woman named Liberty Lane has just had her first taste of true sorrow. Refusing to accept that her gentle, peace-loving father has been killed fighting a duel, she vows to see justice done...
The trail she follows is a twisting and dangerous one, leading the spirited young Englishwoman into an intricate weave of conspiracy. Contacted by secret agents, she is asked to pose as a governess in order to infiltrate cold, rambling Mandeville Hall and spy on its master, Sir Herbert Mandeville, who is at the center of a treasonous plan.
Nothing at the hall is what it seems, and every turn reveals another deceit, another surprise, another peril, leaving Libby to wonder who to trust and embroiling her in a deadly affair that could destroy the young queen and place Libby herself in mortal peril...
The trail she follows is a twisting and dangerous one, leading the spirited young Englishwoman into an intricate weave of conspiracy. Contacted by secret agents, she is asked to pose as a governess in order to infiltrate cold, rambling Mandeville Hall and spy on its master, Sir Herbert Mandeville, who is at the center of a treasonous plan.
Nothing at the hall is what it seems, and every turn reveals another deceit, another surprise, another peril, leaving Libby to wonder who to trust and embroiling her in a deadly affair that could destroy the young queen and place Libby herself in mortal peril...
US version
In Victoria's England, there are perilous intrigues a proper young lady would do well to avoid...
Liberty Lane, still in her early twenties, is doing her best to make a new life for herself in London after being bruised by loss and treachery. But there's no chance for her to settle down as a conventional young lady. First, a disturbingly attractive young politician, Benjamin Disraeli, wants her to use her contacts in the theatre world to find out more about a prima ballerina with a notorious love life called Columbine. He hints that some important interests may be at stake. Then Columbine is murdered in her dressing room, after an on-stage brawl with a younger and less successful dancer, who becomes prime suspect. Liberty is at the center of the investigation because one of her dearest friends, Daniel Suter, is convinced of the girl's innocence and will put his own neck in danger to save her. Liberty's determination to save them from the gallows leads her from the upper reaches of the aristocracy to some of London's lowlife haunts, posing the question: How far would you go to save a friend?
UK version
US version
London. Summer 1839. And the temperature is rising as Liberty Lane takes on her strangest case yet.
Deranged aristocrat Lord Brinkburn is nearing death and his elder son, Stephen, is expecting to inherit the title. But Lady Brinkburn's sudden announcement that Stephen is illegitimate throws the family into turmoil. Tensions reach boiling point between the two brothers, one of whom stands to gain everything, and they come to blows in public-much to the amusement of London Society.
Liberty is engaged privately to get to the truth of the matter, but a macabre murder raises the stakes considerably...added to which she finds her own judgement being undermined by the beguiling Lady Brinkburn. She is only too aware that time is running out-one of the brothers may be next, but which will it be...?
Autumn, 1839. As the London nights darken, rumours spread about the devil’s chariot, which preys on young women walking alone at night. Novice private investigator Liberty Lane has no time for such horror stories, so when a poetic young man begs her to find his missing fiancée, she accepts, suspecting there is a more prosaic explanation. Meanwhile, she is engaged to help prevent a royal scandal involving Prince Albert’s worldlier brother, Prince Ernest. Liberty begins work on both cases, but when young women begin showing up dead, the tales of the devil’s chariot don’t seem so ridiculous any more.
London, 1840. Private investigator Liberty faces a conundrum when her younger brother Tom, an East India Company employee, is unexpectedly summoned to London to give evidence at an official enquiry into the murder of a wealthy merchant’s assistant, found with his throat cut en route to Bombay. A connection between the dead man and escalating rows with China over the lucrative opium trade has caused the government concern. Can Liberty solve a murder that took place six months previously almost five thousand miles away?
July, 1840. Liberty Lane has left London for Cheltenham, where she’s been hired by a local magistrate to establish the guilt or innocence of young Jack Picton, who stands accused of killing governess Mary Marsh. Picton is a known rebel and political agitator. But is he a murderer?
Liberty shares the magistrate’s doubts as to whether the right man is in the dock. But how can she help Picton when he refuses to reveal his whereabouts on the night of the murder? He’s certainly hiding something. But what?
As Liberty is about to discover, behind Cheltenham’s genteel façade lies a hotbed of vice including gambling, drunkenness and illicit love affairs. A place where the poor are driven to desperate lengths to escape the horror of the workhouse. A place which is harbouring a ruthless killer. Can Liberty uncover the truth in time?
Plans for the undercover expedition are disrupted however when a body is found hanging in the attic at Gore House, Lady Blessington’s Kensington mansion.
Uncovering evidence that the murder was meticulously prepared for and planned well in advance, Liberty determines to track down the killer. But she is about to find herself plunged into a highly dangerous game involving blackmail, treachery, espionage–and cold-blooded murder.
September, 1841. A new arrival has taken London society by storm. Lord Byron’s handsome illegitimate son, George, recently arrived from the exotic island of Cephalonia in the company of his guardian, the mysterious Mr Vickery, has been setting female hearts aflutter.
But not all the attention George attracts is welcome. Mr Vickery has been receiving disturbing letters from a woman who calls herself Helena, and he hires Liberty Lane to find out who Helena is and what she wants.
As Liberty is to discover, there is more to this case than meets the eye. Is George really Lord Byron’s son–or is he an imposter? And who exactly is Mr Vickery? What is his agenda? When Liberty comes across a body shot dead near Mr Vickery’s home in Muswell Hill, the investigation takes a shocking turn.
July, 1847. Now a happily married mother-of-two, Liberty Lane is undertaking very few private investigative assignments. But when she is kidnapped from outside a smart London townhouse, where she had been attending a dinner party with her husband Robert, she must call on all her old investigative skills to discover who has taken her, and why.
As Libby tries to formulate a plan of escape, her old friends, former street urchin Tabby and groom Amos Legge, desperately search for her. Convinced that somebody in the Maynard household, where the dinner party was held, knows something about Libby’s disappearance, Tabby keeps watch on the house–and makes a truly shocking discovery.
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