The Mesmerist's Apprentice by L.M. Jackson

[dawnbirduk]

What a wonderful writer, just like 'A most dangerous woman' it bought Victorian London alive, the sights and smells seemed so real. The characters believable and likeable. And the story itself had me on the edge of my seat during all the twists and turns. Fantastic Book.

 

Synopsis from Goodreads - When the enigmatic Sarah Tanner re-opens her Dining and Coffee Rooms soon after a disastrous fire, the gossips of Leather Lane grudgingly admit she has “the luck of the devil.” Yet when a local butcher is falsely accused of a heinous offence — selling horsemeat — it seems her luck has run out. Drawn into an evermore dangerous series of confrontations with a gang of youths who seem determined to put an innocent man out of business, Sarah Tanner’s own livelihood looks set for ruin into the bargain.

 

But what links the persecution of a humble butcher with a certain Dr. Stead — a leading practitioner of the strange art of mesmerism — and a desperate plea from Sarah’s former lover, the aristocrat Arthur De Salle? As Sarah Tanner investigates, she increasingly fears that the mesmerist, patronized by the highest society, is a charlatan and his latest patient, the unwitting victim of a grotesque fraud.

 

To preserve a family’s honour, Sarah sets out upon a trail of suicide, murder, deception and deceit stretching from the alleys of Leather Lane to the drawing rooms of Mayfair.

[SueK]

I love L M (Lee) Jackson's books too - I've read the Sarah Tanner ones so far and another Detective called Decimus Webb who featured in A Metropolitan Murder.

 

He is very knowledgeable on Victorian London and has a great website which you might like:

 

L M Jackson