THE MAYFAIR DAGGER

In Victorian London, a desperate woman fleeing her home to escape a forced marriage lands in a hectic new life.

After the deaths of her beloved brother and father, Albertine Honeycombe is left at the mercy of her cousin, who inherits the family estate and insists she marry a neighboring farmer with 15 children. Escaping with her lifelong friend, Joan, who poses as her maid, she uses every penny she has to rent a house in London and set up as a detective. Pretending to be Countess Von Dagga, she invents a husband away on the continent and soon has a client, Lady Roche, who’s being blackmailed with some indiscreet letters she wrote. Albertine goes to a ball at the home of Lord Grendel, the blackmailer, to try to steal the letters, but ends up having to drug the man when he catches her in his study. On her way out of the gala, she briefly meets Spencer Sweetman, Marquess of Reading and Duke of Erleigh, who prefers working for Scotland Yard to lazing around. When Grendel’s found dead, Albertine fears that she accidentally overdosed him, and Lady Roche refuses to pay her. The odious Baron Wallop, who was also at the ball, accuses Albertine of stealing his wife’s tiara and murdering Grendel. Realizing that she needs to find a man to be “the face of her business” if she’s to be taken seriously as a detective, she hires Spencer. As she continues to seek jobs with Joan and Spencer’s help, Albertine digs herself into a deeper and deeper hole while attempting to discover what and who killed Grendel. Falling in love with the fake countess, Spencer must prove her innocence when she’s arrested for killing Grendel and her nonexistent husband.

A rollicking comedy of errors combines mystery and romance.