Looking for a compelling new mystery which will have you hooked?
It is March 1920. May Keaps, the Poplar Coroner's Officer, has never failed to provide a jury with sufficient evidence to arrive at a just verdict.
The poverty, drunken fights between visiting sailors, drug trafficking, and criminal gangs, haunting the shadows of the busiest docks in the world, mean that the Coroner sees more than its fair share of sudden and unnatural deaths.
May relishes the responsibility placed upon her but there are many who believe it's an unsuitable job for a woman. Even May begins to wonder if that is the case when the discovery of a young man's body, in a Limehouse alley, plunges her into an underworld of opium dens, gambling, turf wars, protection rackets and murder.
As her investigations draw her into danger, it becomes increasingly clear that whoever is responsible intends to avoid the hangman's noose by arranging to have May laid out on one of her own mortuary slabs.
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(May pressed the carriage return. The inquest report was finished but she couldn't let the corners concluding remarks be the last words that the parents read; the mother had been present at the accident, and the implication that she had been careless would haunt her long after she had accepted the loss of her child]***
(Bloodhound Books, 12 December 2017, ARC provided by the publisher and voluntarily reviewed)
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Foul Trade is hugely enjoyable.
I was impressed by the setting of the book. BK Duncan brings London to brilliant, vivid life. I felt like I wear really there, experiencing the sights, sounds and smells. 1920 is also brought to vivid life. The sense of place in Foul Trade is fantastic.
I liked the characters. I thought May was great. She's the perfect heroine for the era the book is set in, passionate, feisty and determined not be talked down to or dismissed because she's a woman. I loved her.
Foul Trade is a great example of mystery or suspense fiction. BK Duncan gradually drips feeds the reader information, forcing you to keep reading and find out how everything is linked together. The ending took me by surprise. I'd no idea who the villain was.
Foul Trade is a great read.
