The Mesmerist's Apprentice

by L.M.Jackson (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $4.58

  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 horse-meat, it seems her luck has run out...Drawn into an ever more 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 DeSalle? As Mrs. Tanner investigates, she increasingly fears that the mesmerist, patronised by the highest in society, is a charlatan and his latest patient, the unwitting victim of a grotesque fraud. To preserve a family's honour, Sarah Tanner sets out upon a trail of suicide, murder, deception and deceit which stretches from the alleys of Leather Lane to the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more she seems to be putting herself in danger...

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $12.04

  The second mystery for lady detective Sarah Tanner in L. M. Jackson's gripping series set in 1850s London. A desperate plea from her former lover, the aristocrat Arthur DeSalle, turns Sarah Tanner's quiet life upside down. Arthur needs Sarah's help. Suspicious of the hold that Dr Stead, renowned practitioner of the strange art of mesmerism, has gained on his aging parents, he hope to expose him as a fraud. But Mrs Tanner is troubled closer to home by a series of increasingly violent confrontations with a gang of Lambeth youths intent, it seems, on putting her out of business. What is their interest in her humble Dining and Coffee Rooms? And what is the closely guarded secret which connects the sinister doctor to the young thugs, and threatens to destroy a family's honour? Her very life at stake, her loyalty tested, Sarah Tanner sets out on a trail of murder and deceit, which stretches from the alleys of Leather Lane to the drawing-rooms of Mayfair...