THE STRANGER IN THE ASYLUM

Lily Raynor and Felix Wilbraham, private investigators who run the World’s End Bureau, engage in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in 1882.

While Felix is away in Paris to collect a bequest left to him by a wealthy Frenchwoman, Lily is visited in London by Phyllida Westwood, whose fiance, Wilberforce Chibb, was sent to an asylum in France by his family, who suspected that he’d killed his father. Now Wilberforce stands accused of having killed a mysterious inmate in the same fashion. Miss Westwood pays Lily a large sum to travel to France and find out the truth. Is Wilberforce mad, or is he being framed? Lily hastily sets off to join the French-speaking Felix on a mission that will tax every bit of their considerable skills. Before they arrive, Wilberforce escapes just as another man is murdered. Their only leads are Wilberforce’s friends in an artists’ colony. Upon arriving there, they find a man shot dead, apparently mistaken for Wilberforce. Although he’s being pursued by the police and asylum guards, neither would have shot him in the back of the head, so a more dangerous player must be involved in the hunt. When they finally catch up to the desperate Wilberforce, who’s beside himself with terror, they face the challenge of keeping him alive until they can return him to England and sort out all the charges. Thus commences still another dangerous game as they travel by ship, train, and foot to escape their dogged pursuers.

A page-turning mystery with a well-hidden motive and a surprising number of twists.