Great start to a new series

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*****

What's not to LOVE! Take a dubious school, the Clifford Charity School on the edge of Seven Dials, led by the mysterious Lady Amanda Clifford, and a small cadre of different and fascinating girls.
The fact that they all love to read Miss Radcliffe's stories is rather endearing. There are rules of course. All must be present for any reading to continue is one of the most important.
Take one of their members, Sophia Monmouth, who is an endearing, brave and shrewd  spirit, who has mastered the art of surveillance, of disappearing into the background, mostly!
Then take a Bow Street Runner turned Earl! 
(Oh my, putting two of my fav tropes together is so a recipe for success! Add in treachery, murder and an innocent branded killer! My cup runneth over! )
It seems these young women, Sophie in particular, are trained in quite different ways at this mysterious school. Ways that scream ... spying, survival tactics? Lady Amanda has some strong connections in high up places it would seem.
Ex Bow Street Runner, Tristan Stratford, now the Earl of Gray, was renowned as 'the Ghost', and when Sophie is pursued by him she fairly groans with dismay over having locked horns with him.
And what caused that? Why Tristan spying a slight youth on the roof next door of the house belonging to Lord Everly. Of course this looks like a would be thief casing the place. Only Tristan found that this is so much more, leading to a young man incarcerated for murder in Newgate, a deadly scam, and a more recent murder of a Bow Street companion, a crime that has so troubled his heart.

A Kensington Books ARC via NetGalley 

 

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