Lydia Langstone was brought up in a prosperous London household, with all the comforts that money could buy. But after she flees her abusive marriage, she is forced to take refuge in a decrepit building in Bleeding Heart Square. As she begins a new life in a neighborhood often hostile to the gentry, she finds herself entangled in a sinister mystery haunting her new home. Full of twists and turns, period detail, and rich characters, Taylor's compelling mystery will delight readers of Anne Perry and other historical mystery fiction.

What if a childless man in his forties discovers that he has a daughter, the result of an affair twenty-five years earlier? What if the daughter is pregnant? And what if she's on the run for murder? James wasn't much more than a child when he had an affair with Lily. Now, 24 years later, Lily confesses to James that their affair led to a daughter, Kate. And Kate desperately needs her father's help, because she is wanted for murder. Yet there is no room for murder in James's life--he has a wife, a good job, and a nice house in the country. Kate comes crashing into his world, and lights the...

The intellectual relationship between Henry James and his father proved to be an influential resource for the novelist. Andrew Taylor examines the nature of both men's engagement with autobiographical strategies, issues of gender reform, and the language of religion. He argues for a reading of Henry James that is informed by an awareness of paternal inheritance. Through the study of a wide range of novels and texts, he demonstrates how James Senior's dialogue with his contemporaries, such as Emerson and Whitman, anticipates James's own theories of fiction and selfhood.