Companion

"In the corners of the room the shadows cast velvety veils. It would not be too difficult to imagine someone stood there and watched. I thought of Madeleine Hexham.... I glanced around me. It was likely that I'd been given my predecessor's room and that it was here she had planned her flight into the arms of her mysterious lover."

When Lizzie Martin arrives in London in 1864 to become a lady's companion, her first impressions are disturbing. She's barely out of the station when her cab encounters a wagon carrying the remains of a young woman recently dead.

At her new home, Lizzie learns that her predecessor, Madeleine Hexham, disappeared without a word of warning. Despite rumors of immoral behavior surrounding the girl's departure, Lizzie is soon persuaded that there's a deeper mystery here. Her suspicions are tragically confirmed when Inspector Benjamin Ross delivers shocking tidings.

Lizzie is determined to unravel the truth about the lost Miss Hexham. As, too, is Ben Ross: a man who cares about justice, whatever the class of victim. But they must tread carefully, as a cornered killer is the most dangerous of all...

Publishers Weekly

British author Granger's picturesque but disappointing Victorian historical alternates point-of-view between independent-minded Elizabeth Martin and young Scotland Yard inspector Benjamin Ross, long-separated childhood friends whose paths coincidentally cross at a murder case. Lizzie, the impoverished daughter of a doctor, finds herself without resources after her father's death in 1864, and moves to London to serve as companion for the wealthy Mrs. Parry. Ross is investigating the brutal murder of a young woman, who turns out to have been Lizzie's employer's previous companion. Outraged that Mrs. Parry and her cronies blame the victim for her fate, Martin does some amateur sleuthing on her own, but the resolution turns on her endangerment-not her powers of deduction. Granger, the author of the long-running Fran Vardy cozy series and the Mitchell and Markby series, delivers persuasive period detail but commonplace plot and characters. (June)