DEAD END

Victorian Insp. Best, depressed by the tragic outcome of his last case (Dead Letters, 2003), departs London for cold, depressing Newcastle, where several young girls have gone missing.

The body of Phoebe Threapleton, spoiled daughter of prominent Sir George Threapleton, is found laid out like Ophelia in a canopy-bed display in Bainbridge’s, Newcastle’s highly respectable department store. But Phoebe, unlike Ophelia, was a willful child: among other things, she was bent on pursuing attorney Arthur Meredith, whom Sir George claims is her unacknowledged half-brother. Phoebe had joined a Spiritualist society to consult her deceased mother. Her mother’s spirit, however, was reluctant to talk about her earthly sex life, even posthumously, and Phoebe’s participation in séances may have exposed her to unscrupulous types. But why would such people kill her and leave her body in Bainbridge’s? And what connection did Phoebe have with the other girls, all far less socially prominent? Best and the local detectives continue to search for the three other vanished girls, but hope is fading. Meantime, Helen, a woman to whom Best once proposed, turns up in Newcastle to help, putting herself at risk.

Stuffed with more historical events and subplots than Bainbridge’s is with departments. The abrupt resolutions to Best’s personal suffering and the various mysteries don’t do enough to dispel the murky atmosphere of a coal town