The pair run afoul of a schoolmaster/parson, a foreign-service officer, a hen-pecked son and several unsavory types at the building site. Inspector Ben Ross of the Yard, a collier’s son who met Lizzie as a child, is soon on the case.
But with whom? That’s the question, especially when the girl’s dead body is found in a house slated to be demolished as the site for a new railway station. Lizzie discovers the companion she replaced simply up and disappeared, then sent a note saying she’d eloped. But in 1864, a girl approaching 30 can’t be too choosy. Aunt Parry, as she likes to be called, brings her up from the country to her fashionable London home as her companion, a role for which Lizzie is temperamentally unsuited, since she’s far too curious and outspoken.
Was Penhallow the victim of a terrorist attack? Or did Drago murder him? What is the young woman's connection with the victim and his family? Granger offers only a small cast of possible suspects, but manages to sustain the suspense of Mitchell's and Markby's investigation until the novel's tidy and believable conclusion.When her papa dies, leaving her penniless, Lizzie Martin, with no schooling, no domestic skills and not much in the way of looks, turns to her godfather’s widow, Mrs. Markby, who went to school with Penhallow, is called to the scene, and the investigation begins. Later that night, a knock at the back door brings Penhallow outside, where he is viciously attacked and murdered. After stowing the young hitchhiker in a nearby seedy hotel, Penhallow returns home. While his wife, Carla, is upstairs with a migraine, Penhallow confronts his unwelcome visitor, Kate Drago, alone. A striking young woman hitchhikes her way to Bamford from London, and Mitchell gives her a lift to her destination: Tudor Lodge, the home of lawyer and European Union ""mandarin"" Andrew Penhallow. In her 11th mystery (after A Word After Dying) featuring British sleuthing duo Meredith Mitchell and her policeman lover, Alan Markby, Granger once again delivers a polished whodunit.
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