Lawless and the House of Electricity

The Third Campbell Lawless Victorian Mystery

Nobility. Modernity. Power. The lights burn bright enough to hurt.

The new drawing mistress feels inquisitive eyes upon her as she arrives to take up her post at a country house. Ex-street urchin Molly’s quickwitted candour earns her favour with the old Earl and his guests, but the keen-eyed butler sees through her pose of gentility.

In London’s East End, a body tumbles from a ship. Sergeant Lawless unearths connections between a newly arrived aristocrat, an unfortunate fire, and a mysterious vanishment. The shadow of European machinations looms over the capital, threatening royals and politicians, but evidence from an accidental blast sends him into the English shires.

The House of Roxburgh welcomes a cavalcade poets and magicians, explorers and cyclists, scientists and surgeons. But Molly begins to suspect that darker secrets lurk in the gardens. Who works so late into the night in the menagerie glasshouse laboratories? Molly uses her artistic licence to investigate, divining unseen forces running Roxburgh House. The butler suspects her motives, as he guards the secret of the East Wing; but the diary of the late Lady Roxburgh begins to inform Molly of the House’s sad tale of loss.

Lawless must unravel the threads of the plot before an impostor gets the power he wants. But what is the Earl’s sad secret – and the beautiful, intricate, troubling plan for which all these sacrifices have been made?