Part of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, book 15
First published 2018
Mary Russell wants to refuse when an old friend asks for help finding her missing aunt. Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent years moving between asylums since losing her brother and father in the Great War. Her mental condition had been improving at Bethlem Royal Hospital, known as Bedlam, but she vanished during a supervised outing. Russell feels reluctant to take the case, yet she cannot turn away her friend. She and her husband Sherlock Holmes must combine their skills in deduction and disguise to track the disappeared woman. Their search leads them from the harsh walls of Bedlam to the winding waterways of Venice. There they discover that Benito Mussolini's growing power threatens not just the ancient city, but the fate of one troubled English aristocrat caught between two worlds.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, thriller, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, found-family
Setting: Bedlam, Venice, England
Period: Great War, 1920s
320 pages · Kindle Edition · Bantam Books/Penguin Random House
Content warnings: mental-illness