D is for death

'A glorious, stylish story of passion, poison and peril' LUCY DIAMOND'What a world, what a plot, what a cast - a masterpiece!' VERONICA HENRY'A charming and authentic ode to Golden Age crime fiction and to books in general.

In a genre replete with world-weary cynicism, Dora Wildwood makes for an endearingly optimistic feminist sleuth' CHRIS BROOKMYREMeet Dora Wildwood: runaway bride, book lover, and aspiring detective.

Likes: solving crimes, peppermint creams, trousers and her own independence. Dislikes: cracked book spines, tyrannical behaviour, beetroot. 1935. Dora'son the first train to London, having smuggled herself out of the house in the middle of the night to escape her impending marriage.

But unluckily for her, Dora's fiance is more persistent than most and follows. As Dora alights at Paddington station, she is immediately forced to run from the loathsome Charles Silk-Butters.

She ducks into the London Library to hide and it is there, surrounded by books, where she should feel most safe, that Dora Wildwood stumbles across her first dead body. Having been thrown into the middle of a murder scene, it's now impossible to walk away.

Indeed, Dora's certain she will prove an invaluable help to the gruff Detective Inspector Fox who swiftly arrives on the scene.

For as everyone knows, it's the woman in the room who always sees more than anyone else: and no one more so than Dora herself... D is for Death heralds the launch of a brilliant historical crime series that marries the quality of Dorothy L.

Sayers with the ingenuity of Janice Hallett - and in Dora Wildwood introduces a character with the spark and gusto of Enola Holmes and the detective skill of Miss Marple.

It is the debut crime novel from bestselling author Harriet Evans, writing as Harriet F.

Townson. 'So good and funny ... bristling with loveable characters' LAURA WOOD'I am now a Dora addict ... so wonderful' NATASHA POLISZCZUK