Dead End

Dead End, Severn House, 2004
The fourth Best mystery

Large Print, Severn House, 2005

Spanish edition (Seis Rosas Blancas), Punto de Lectura, 2005

Order from Amazon UK

DI Ernest Best is called in on a case at Newcastle-upon-Tyne where the police are trying to locate several missing girls. When he arrives he finds there has been a terrible discovery in Messrs Bainbridge & Co, ‘The Emporium of the North’ and the world’s first department store.

His enquiries lead him into the lives of rule-bound shop-workers; the poverty-stricken emigrant Irish; the wealthy local industrialists and members of the mysterious, Newcastle Spiritual Investigation Society.

Victorian Tyneside was a place of fascinating contrasts and amazing entrepreneurial invention and vitality while, at the same time being the scene of much tragedy. All are well illustrated in this gripping crime novel.

'Inspector Best is back in Lock's popular Victorian mystery series . . . As usual, Lock produces a clever, engaging mystery with plenty of authentic Victorian ambience. The spiritualist theme is nicely developed, both as a plot device and as a way of setting the historical context.'
Booklist (American Library Association)

'Showing how the crimes of history reach into our own times is a great achievement for a crime novel with real depth and resonance.'
Dr Susan Rowland, Mystery Women.