In 1873, Vaudeline D’Allaire is a renowned medium famous for her ability to conjure the spirits of murder victims to identify their killers. Lenna Wickes travels to Paris to apprentice under Vaudeline, hoping to use spiritualism to uncover the truth behind her sister’s recent death. When the London Séance Society—an all-male organization of skeptical occultists—invites Vaudeline to investigate the high-profile murder of their president, the two women travel to England. They navigate a clandestine world of staged illusions and Victorian misogyny, eventually suspecting that the society's members are hiding a lethal conspiracy that links their private grief to a broader institutional fraud.
Readers of historical mysteries who enjoy the tension between scientific rationalism and Victorian occultism will find this a detailed examination of nineteenth-century spiritualist techniques. The narrative appeals to those interested in the social boundaries placed upon women in the 1870s and the lengths taken to circumvent them. A reader finishes the book with a technical understanding of period séance trickery and a clear look at how professional brotherhoods used exclusivity to protect their reputations and secrets.
- Published
- 2023
- Language
- EN
