The Sailor's Ransom: A Bella Wallis Mystery (Bella Wallis Mysteries)

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Alexander McCall Smith meets Sarah Waters in an effervescent new series with a glamorous, witty heroine?think 1870s Murder She Wrote London, 1875. At Lady Cornford's famous soiree (sugared almonds and tittle-tattle) everyone is gossiping about Henry Ellis Margam's latest hit, The Widow’s Secret?but only a few people know that one of Lady C's guests, the enigmatic Bella Wallis, is in fact the bestselling novelist. Bella punishes evil-doers by exposing them as thinly-disguised characters in the books she writes under her male pseudonym. One of her confidantes is the dashing Philip Westland, who comes to her now with a problem: his best friend Kennett is smitten by Miss Mary Skillane, an heiress whose father has promised her to Robert Judd, a vulgar treasure seeker. Mary is due to inherit the Skillane pearls, currently residing in a Cornish bank vault, but it seems the pearls were ill-gotten. Can Bella and her friends unite the young lovers and escape the attention of the villainous Judd?

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Brian Thompson has written two award-winning volumes of memoir: Keeping Mum, winner of the Costa Prize for Biography and the PEN/Ackerley Prize, and Clever Girl, longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. The first Bella Wallis mystery was The Widow's Secret.