The Man in the Shadows

Set in 1881, Clare’s unremarkable third World’s End Bureau mystery (after 2020’s The Outcast Girls) finds Lily Raynor, the London bureau’s owner, feeling unfulfilled by affluent clients seeking incriminating evidence against their spouses, despite the recent uptick in business. Then she gets a request from the Rev. Mr. James Jellicote, a friend who runs a mission for the needy, to search for a missing child. A Russian Jewish woman Jellicote has been helping, who fled pogroms in her native country, is distraught that her 11-year-old grandson, who came to England with her, has disappeared. Lily dives into the case, while her friend and assistant, Felix Wilbraham, agrees to help Jared Spokewright, whose younger brother was hanged the previous year for strangling the milkmaid he’d been courting. Jared is sure his brother was innocent, and Felix travels to Kent to try to confirm that belief and finger the real killer. The twin plot lines are entertaining enough, but in a crowded subgenre they’re not particularly memorable. Maisie Dobbs fans interested in a similar series set during the Victorian era may want to check this out. Agent: Sophie Gorell Barnes, MBA Literary (U.K.). (Aug.)