The Denton Novels

Electronic book text

1900s London and Denton has mysteries to solve...

In The Frightened Man American novelist Denton is about to be plunged into the dark heart of a society where privilege and propriety hide unspeakable horrors. When a stranger turns up at his door declaring he has just seen Jack the Ripper, Denton dismisses his lurid ravings as the delusions of a madman. But then a prostitute's horribly mutilated body is discovered that night - and Denton suspects the two events are connected. While the police investigation grinds towards a seemingly pre-ordained conclusion, Denton becomes obsessed with finding out who the victim really was and who killed her - a search that leads him by degrees into the darkest, most violent underbelly of London.

In The Bohemian Girl, Denton receives a strange letter which demands his attention: a note from a young woman, Mary, saying she's in terrible danger and needs his help. The letter is months old, and was only forwarded to him when the buyer of a painting found it stuck behind the frame. Presumably whatever Mary was frightened of has already happened. So why did she hide the note behind this particular painting, instead of sending it The search for answers leads Denton into the heart of Bohemian London - a world of brilliance and depravity, of unconventional morals and shifting sexual identities, where the border between genius and madness is hard to discern but easy to cross.

In The Second Woman, Denton is drawn into a complex web of murder and revenge when a mysterious Polish woman is found dead in the house adjoining his - the one occupied by his lover, Janet Stryker - and while the police remain baffled, he begins to suspect she is the victim of some sort of political conspiracy. But involving himself in the life and death of Lydia Alken will prove more dangerous than he could have imagined, as Denton himself falls victim to the fledgling British Intelligence Service and discovers exactly what the price of freedom really is, while the real story of Lydia Alken's murder provides the biggest shock of all.