“The year was 1900, the place was London, and the night, an unusually warm one for September, began and ended with horrors. I was caught up in them almost without warning as I turned into a narrow, poorly lit, cobbled lane and instinctively slowed my pace. Ahead of me, where the passage took a sudden bend to the right, a small gas lamp glowed feebly, and its uncertain, wavering light produced oddly distorted shadows.”
“Byways to Evil” takes the reader through the rich atmosphere of turn-of-the-century London, from the drawing rooms of the wealthy and titled to the dim shadows of narrow lanes populated by London's poor, as detective extraordinaire Lady Sara and her “secretary” Colin Quick search for the solution to a series of horrendous murders and baffling robberies. Lady Sara's giant cribbage board, her “Byways to Evil” twists and turns as much as their distorted clues as the murderers and thieves elude discovery.
Plotted by a master storyteller, full of details of turn-of-the century life and crime, this is a satisfying period mystery.
