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1850s: A Victorian detective of the utmost discretion
The Secrets of Wishtide
What you need to know before your trail
Mrs Laetitia Rodd is the impoverished widow(and private detective) of an Archdeacon, living modestly in Hampstead with her landlady Mrs Bentley. In winter 1850, her brother Frederick, a criminal barrister, introduces her to Sir James Calderstone, a wealthy and powerful industrialist who asks Mrs Rodd to investigate the background of an ‘unsuitable’ woman his son intends to marry – a match he is determined to prevent.
In the guise of governess, she travels to the family seat, Wishtide, deep in the frozen Lincolnshire countryside, where she soon discovers that the Calderstones have more to hide than most. As their secrets unfold, the case takes an unpleasant turn when a man is found dead outside a tavern. Mrs Rodd’s keen eyes and astute wits are taxed as never before in her search for the truth – which carries her from elite drawing rooms to London’s notorious inns and its steaming laundry houses.
Travel Guide
London
Mrs Bentley lives in a house in Hampstead:
“Well Walk was a bustling , workaday street and Mrs Bentley house was practically next door to a tavern. I didn’t see how I could possibly live in this shabby little terrace, with carts and drays rumbling past all day”
It’s an unpromising house at at first Laeticia is not sure she should have been here. Mrs Bentley has a fair few grandchildren and since she had red hair when younger, she is said to have “scattered ginger across every north London village from Golders Green to Kentish Town”
This is an interesting house – John Keats is said to have taken lodging here. Laeticia’s brother is a hot shot lawyer in the city and lives in Highgate village.
Lincolnshire Wolds
Wishtide is situated in the southernmost part of the Lincolnshire Wolds and in the chill, slate-coloured autumn dusk we drover through a country of wooden hills, with church towers and cottages clustered in the valleys.
The lodge is immacutely kept but it’s too dark to see too much as its dark but it;s clear that it’s huge, in the style of a castle and has a vaulted hall and large fireplace inside.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: The Secrets of Wishtide
Author/Guide: Kate Saunders Destination:London Departure Time: 1850s
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