Commissioned to negotiate the release of papers linked to Frankenstein infamy, London detective Charles Maddox, whose uncle remains haunted by an unsolved mystery surrounding the Romantics literary movement, is roped into a gothic-tinged case that places him in the path of such luminaries as Lord Byron and Mary Shelley.

In the dying days of 1850 the young detective Charles Maddox takes on a new case. His client? The only surviving son of the long-dead poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his wife Mary, author of Frankenstein. Charles soon finds himself being drawn into the bitter battle being waged over the poet's literary legacy, but then he makes a chance discovery that raises new doubts about the death of Shelley's first wife, Harriet, and he starts to question whether she did indeed kill herself, or whether what really happened was far more sinister than suicide. As he's drawn deeper into the tangled web of the past, Charles discovers darker and more disturbing secrets, until he comes face to face with the terrible possibility that his own great-uncle is implicated in a conspiracy to conceal the truth that stretches back more than thirty years. The story of the Shelleys is one of love and death, of loss and betrayal. In this follow-up to the acclaimed Tom-All-Alone's, Lynn Shepherd offers her own fictional version of that story, which suggests new and shocking answers to mysteries that still persist to this day, and have never yet been fully explained. Praise for Tom-All-Alone's: A brilliant and sinister remake of Bleak House, exposing the vicious underworld of Victorian London. Totally gripping. - John Carey. Dickens' s world described with modern precision. - The Times. Beaitifully written... an absorbing read - Literary Review. A necessary eye for squalor, meticulous research and deft plotting make this a book... you'll be guaranteed to enjoy. - Guardian.

A follow-up to In the Woods finds a traumatized detective Cassie Maddox struggling in her career and relationship with Sam O'Neill while investigating the unsettling murder of a young woman whose name matches an alias Cassie once had used as an undercover officer. 50,000 first printing.

In the dying days of 1850 the young detective Charles Maddox takes on a new case. His client? The only surviving son of the long-dead poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his wife Mary, author of Frankenstein. Charles soon finds himself being drawn into the bitter battle being waged over the poet's literary legacy, but then he makes a chance discovery that raises new doubts about the death of Shelley's first wife, Harriet, and he starts to question whether she did indeed kill herself, or whether what really happened was far more sinister than suicide. As he's drawn deeper into the tangled web of the past, Charles discovers darker and more disturbing secrets, until he comes face to face with the terrible possibility that his own great-uncle is implicated in a conspiracy to conceal the truth that stretches back more than thirty years. The story of the Shelleys is one of love and death, of loss and betrayal. In this follow-up to the acclaimed Tom-All-Alone's, Lynn Shepherd offers her own fictional version of that story, which suggests new and shocking answers to mysteries that still persist to this day, and have never yet been fully explained. Praise for Tom-All-Alone's: A brilliant and sinister remake of Bleak House, exposing the vicious underworld of Victorian London. Totally gripping. - John Carey. Dickens' s world described with modern precision. - The Times. Beaitifully written... an absorbing read - Literary Review. A necessary eye for squalor, meticulous research and deft plotting make this a book... you'll be guaranteed to enjoy. - Guardian.