by Jess Kidd
This book takes place in Victorian London. It is about a young woman who was taken in as a child by a doctor. She eagerly served as his lab assistant and learned a lot about anatomy, etc. The Detective meets a ghost in a church yard and he now moves along with her as her companion. He thinks she should recognize him but I am not sure she ever does.
When the book opens she is working as a woman detective. She is hired to find out who has kidnapped the unusual daughter of a doctor. The girl is kept hidden away in the house and seems to have vile habits including being able to affect people's minds, eating fish whole, attracting snails.
It becomes obvious early on that the kidnappers are the woman who was recently hired as the girl's nurse and the girl's doctor.
They plan to sell the girl to a "collector" in France but that falls through, then they sell her to a circus owner but that deal also collapses so they take her to London. As the girl gets closer to London the rain starts to fall and threatens to submerge London, the river levels rise also.
As the detective seeks to find the truth they find a young woman dead on the property. The young woman also comes face to face with the son of the doctor who took her in. He was thought dead but has returned to England after year's abroad. The young man is vicious and a womanizer.
In the end the woman detective is able to find the girl and release her into the river. The ghost eventually fades from view. The young woman who was found murdered was the real mother of the strange girl the doctor held at his house.
It was an unusual book, not really my cup of tea.
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