Mini-Review

Izzy Stanhope is a late-Victorian wallflower from a ‘good’ family that has fallen on hard times since the death of her financially unfortunate father. Trying to keep her brother at school and her invalid mother blissfully unaware of their penury, she accepts a secret job with the Aviary: an agency of women who work cases on behalf of other women, making sure justice is done – if unconventionally – in a world in which women had few legal rights. She has considerable skills including lockpicking and fading into the background. But then, pursuing a mysteriously valuable brooch on behalf of a client, she becomes mixed up with the handsome and unattainable Duke of Roxton on whom she has crushed from afar and who has his own, clashing interests.

Well written, quality historical crime romance with a feminist bent. Recommend!

Fyi: gaslighting, mentions of domestic and psychological abuse, blackmail, non-graphic violence.

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