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It's 1910 and Ursula Marlow lives in London with her very wealthy industrialist father. Her father is a self-made man and while proud of it, is too aware of his lack of status in England's class-conscious society. He tries to have Ursula always act properly because he is hoping to make a good marriage for her, so that her future will be assured. Ursula, meanwhile, is a headstrong young woman. She insists that she be educated, so her father permits her to go to university at Oxford and she studies to be a journalist. Now after she has graduated, Ursula has made contacts with all the newest causes. She goes to rallies supporting women's rights, she volunteers at a soup kitchen for the poor and her friends are from the more radical groups. One late night, she receives a desperate phone call for help from Winifred Stanford-Jones a woman she met at university and with whom she shares the passion for women's rights. Winifred begs Ursula to go to her home immediately, and so she does. There she finds the naked dead body of a woman in Winifred's bed. Winifred says that she has no ideas what happened. Ursula then calls on Lord Oliver Wrotham, who is her father's trusted legal adviser. Though Ursula rather detests Wrotham because he is very condescending towards her, she knows that he is the best one to trust with this delicate case. Her father and Wrotham try to help Winifred, but Ursula soon finds out that their main interest it to keep Ursula's name out of the mess. It seems as if the women found in her bed was Winifred's lover. Furthermore, Winifred and her girlfriend frequented the more risqué clubs around London where people use drugs and alcohol to excess. They both aren't sure that Winifred is innocent as Ursula seems to think. Ursula decides to make her own inquiries in order to help her friend. But in doing so she finds clues that connects her father and his business associates with a man who was betrayed during an expedition to Venezuela they all backed years ago. This man might be working out his own vendetta against the families of the men who sent him on the expedition – including Winifred's lover's family. If that is true then Ursula's life might be in peril as well. Ursula then vows that she will find out the truth, no matter what she might have to do – even if she has to go to South America disguised as a man! This is the first in a series written by new writer Clare Langley-Hawthorne. She writes well and once you start reading you won't find it easy to put this book down. She does a first-class job of setting the location and the era of the story. She knows all about the clothing, foods and etiquette niceties amongst the wealthy in London at the time period. My only criticism has to do with the main character, Ursula. She's supposed to be in her 20s and a graduate of Oxford University. For some reason Ursula is written as a rather flighty, foolish, younger woman, who thinks that she will earn respect by pouting and stamping her foot. Langley-Hawthorne also decides to have Ursula pass for a man by just dressing in trousers. I always find that to be a bad mistake in any story and here it just doesn't work at all. Other than that, this book has more than enough romance, drama and action to keep most readers fully inside the story. This is also said to be the first of a new series and I will be interested in reading the next installment.
Reviewed by A. L. Katz, March 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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