It is 1891 and London is still reeling from the horror of the Ripper murders when Inspector Lestrade is sent to the Isle of Wight to investigate a strange corpse walled up in Shanklin Chine.
But this is only the start of the nightmare the first in a series of killings so brutal, so bizarre and apparently so random that only a warped genius (and a master of disguise) could be responsible. Even when Lestrade pieces together the extraordinary pattern of the crimes from the extraordinary poems sent after each murder, he is no closer to knowing the identity of the mysterious Agrippa, the great, long, red-legged scissorman. It becomes a very personal battle and Lestrades desperate race to avert the next death in the sequence takes him all over the country, from London to the Pennines and back.
Lestrade whirls from ballroom to bar-room, from vicarage to Spiritualist gathering, from the studio of the celebrated Alma-Tadema to 221B Baker Street with spellbinding panache.
Dry neo-Wodehousian wit runs through this bold revisionist mystery The true sleuthing brain of the times belongs to Scotland Yards Inspector Sholto Lestrade The buffoonish Holmes and his idiotic disguises are a hoot.
Publishers Weekly
From Publishers Weekly
Dry neo-Wodehousian wit runs through this bold revisionist mystery, the first in a successful British series which Gateway is publishing to launch its first foray into mysteries. Trow's Sherlock Holmes is a sad, cocaine-addled doofus; Dr. Watson is a bitter author; poor Conan Doyle is afraid of his own shadow; and the true sleuthing brain of the times belongs to Scotland Yard's Inspector Sholto Lestrade. Still smarting from the official debacle of the Ripper murders, Lestrade must now trail a diabolical killer whose motiveless murdering spree follows a series of fictional characters in a cautionary children's tale. Lestrade's method is to eliminate every possible suspect, in the process of which he gets into all kinds of trouble, breaking some bones and falling into bed with two women, one a widow, the other his superior's daughter. Both, like most every character in this giddy novel, are suspects on the detective's long list. Trow delights in droll wordplay and wicked vignettes of the period's livelier personalities, e.g., Lord Tennyson and Oscar Wilde. The buffoonish Holmes and his idiotic disguises are a hoot. Future Lestrade period frolics are planned. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
M J Trow is a crime writer, historian and biographer who for many years doubled as a history teacher. Now retired, he is the author of three successful crime fiction series Lestrade, Maxwell and Kit Marlowe, the latest written in collaboration with his wife. He lives in the Isle of Wight, and as well as writing lectures on cruise ships has appeared many times on television in historical and crime documentaries.