The Second Woman

April 14, 2014
In Cameron’s darkly compelling third Denton mystery (after 2010’s The Bohemian Girl), the expatriate American novelist and Civil War veteran becomes entangled in 1903 London’s racial and social strife. While attending a shooting party in the countryside, Denton receives a telegram from his lover, social worker Janet Striker, summoning him back to the city. Janet—who lives in a house adjoining his—tells him that a woman’s mutilated body has been discovered in his garden. The victim, tentatively identified as Rebecca Shermitz, had just received an abortion from Bernat, a doctor living nearby. Since both victim and suspect are Jewish, fierce anti-Semitic passions are aroused throughout the city, including those of Denton’s best friend, Baronet Hector Hench-Rose, who’s linked to the Brotherhood of Britons, an anti-immigration group. Denton, helped by his trusted aide, British Army veteran Sergeant Atkins, discovers that the elite London police unit Special Branch may be orchestrating a cover-up. Cameron has crafted a complex and gripping period whodunit.