In a land of saffron sunsets and blazing summer heat, an Englishwoman has been found dead, her wrists slit, her body floating in a bathtub of blood and water. But is it suicide or murder? The case falls to Scotland Yard inspector Joe Sandilands, who survived the horror of the Western Front and has endured six sultry months in English-ruled Calcutta. Sandilands is ordered to investigate, and soon discovers that there have been other mysterious deaths,...

Praise for Barbara Cleverly:
"Spectacular and dashing, spellbinding."—The New York Times Book Review
"Smashing . . . marvelously evoked."—Chicago Tribune
"A historical mystery that has just about everything."—Denver Post
"Cleverly maintains the high standards set by earlier Sandilands tales, blending a sophisticated whodunit with full-blooded characters and a revealing look at her chosen time...

On his return from India, Commander Joe Sandilands, now adept at the arts of dynamic diplomacy, finds himself up to his neck in a tricky political situation. A war-weary London is reeling from IRA atrocities and Joe is further plagued by the machinations of a spy-ring being run under his nose by a Russian emigree princess. When a war hero is gunned down and the life of an even more popular Englishman threatened, Joe knows he only has days to root...

When the body of a young woman is found buried along the banks of the Thames in 1933, Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Joe Sandilands juggles the case with an increasingly dangerous assignment protecting an American senator.

"Cambridge, October 1933. Inside the old All Hallows Church on All Hallows' Eve, Doctor Adelaide Hartest bears witness to the final moments of a dying stranger. Despite the dagger plunged into the stranger's chest, the death is ruled a suicide, compounded by a formal confession before death. The victim, it is revealed, is known to Scotland Yard, and Assistant Commissioner Joe Sandilands is sent all the way from London to investigate. Thrown into...