London, 1782. Desperate for her politician husband to return home from France, Caroline ‘Caro’ Corsham is already in a state of anxiety when she finds a well-dressed woman mortally wounded in the bowers of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
The Bow Street constables are swift to act, until they discover that the deceased woman was a highly paid prostitute, at which point they cease to care entirely.
But Caro has motives of her own for wanting to see justice done, and so sets out to solve the crime herself. Enlisting the help of thieftaker Peregrine Child, their inquiry delves into the hidden corners of Georgian society, a world of artifice, deception and secret lives.
But with many gentlemen refusing to speak about their dealings with the dead woman, and Caro’s own reputation under threat, finding the killer will be harder, and more treacherous, than she can know.
Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson is published in paperback on 3 March, 2022.
Read about the background to Laura’s first novel in A respectable trade in brutality: Blood & Sugar.
Historia interviewed Laura Shepherd-Robinson when she won the 2020 HWA Debut Crown for Blood & Sugar.
