Tag Archives: Historical

The Agency for Scandal

Posted on by

The Agency for Scandal by Laura Wood

Book of the Week: 4 February 2024

Cover illustration by Mercedes Debellard

Eighteen year old Isobel Stanhope leads a double life. Most of the time she is a rather forgettable young woman, outshone by her friend Teresa Winter and Sylla Banaji, the socialite daughter of a baronet. It being 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, most of society is centred on celebratory parties, theatre trips and fancy dress balls, all of which Isobel attends, mainly in the hope of seeing the handsome Max Vane, the eighth Duke of Roxton. Not that he seems to care. She has been introduced to him several times and he never even remembers her name. Not even Isobel’s closest friends know that, when her father died, he left the family with hardly any money and consequently she is working hard to support her mother and pay her little brother’s boarding school fees. Her mother is an invalid who keeps to her room, rather like Miss Havisham, and is unaware that nearly everything in the rest of the house has been sold to raise money. Isobel’s darkest secret is that she works for an undercover detective agency called The Aviary, run by the formidable Mrs Finch. The agency exists to investigate infidelities, thefts and murders and is run by women for the benefit of women. Isobel is a valued member of staff because she has been taught to pick locks by her father and is able to pass as a young boy. She dresses as a street urchin called Kes and has contacts in the criminal underworld.

When she is recruited by a villain called Rook to steal a valuable ruby brooch at the Devonshire House fancy dress ball, she realises she is mixed up in a dangerous plot that may involve the powerful Lord Morland who is angling to be Britain’s next Prime Minister. She has mixed feelings when Max Vane gets involved as she is not sure whose side he is on.

The author Sarra Manning calles the book ‘A perfect mash up of Bridgerton and Enola Holmes‘. I would add the recent Apple TV series The Buccaneers to the comparison. The story romps along with plenty of action and subterfuge, as well as romance. I have read a couple of novels for adults with some similar themes and settings recently and found this one a lot more fun.

There is a sequel called The Season for Scandal which has just been published.

Black Arts

Posted on by

Black Arts (Book 1: The Books of Pandemonium) by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil

Book of the Week: 5 June 2016

'Black Arts' and its sequel 'Devil's Blood' are both in stock in the School Library.

‘Black Arts’ and its sequel ‘Devil’s Blood’ are both in stock in the School Library.

Black Arts is a mixture of adventure, fantasy and horror set in London in 1592.

The story opens with Jack setting off from his home in Southwark with words of advice from his ‘Ma’. He has come to the notice of the local crime lord, Sharkwell, a Fagin-like character who runs a criminal network and who puts young thieves to work as ‘nippers’ (youngsters who cut purses from the belts of unsuspecting people or ‘coneys’ as the thieves call their victims). The book is packed with this kind of colourful and archaic language and it adds to the picture of a rough and ready London brimming with life, crime and filth. Whether all the words used are genuine doesn’t really matter, as they sound convincing and would be great to read aloud.

Jack is put to work with other members of Sharkwell’s gang, including his grand-daughter Beth, an accomplished con-artist, who takes against Jack for reasons best known to herself. When Jack clears a blockage from a pipe found in a stolen purse, a puff of powder damages his eye and hand and gives him the ability to see things that are invisible to other mortals. The owner of the pipe is waiting for Jack on his return home and has already murdered his mother in his search for the stolen purse. He is prepared to kill Jack to get it back but Jack has already given the purse to Sharkwell.

The rest of the story unfolds in swashbuckling style as Jack seeks revenge for the killing of his Ma and learns to come to terms with his special gift of sight in a city teeming with horror and devilry.

There is praise from Charlie Higson on the cover – a good match, because if you enjoyed the horror, humour and action of his ‘Enemy’ series, you may well like this alternative version of a gruesome London.

There is an interview with the authors here and a link to the cover-illustrator’s work here.