Description: At dawn one morning in 1933, an amateur dowsing team digging the banks of the Thames for precious metals unearths the body of a young woman with a missing toe and a priceless gold coin in her mouth. The case falls on Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard Joe Sandilands' turf, but he's been given another assignment--a very high-profile one. London is hosting a historic global economic conference to try to solve the global Depression, and political tensions are running high, as very influential participants are starting to take positions allied with or staunchly against the rapidly militarizing Germany. Sandilands' job is to protect and keep an eye on visiting American senator Cornelius Kingstone, right-hand man to President Roosevelt. When a strange set of coincidences link the dead girl to the senator, Joe realizes his assignment is much bigger than he thought, and that Senator Kingstone is caught up in a very dangerous game.
Brief description:
Barbara Cleverly is a former teacher and a graduate of Durham University who now lives in Cambridge. Her debut, The Last Kashmiri Rose, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2002.
Review Quotes:
"The title (chosen with a nod to Shakespeare) is particularly apt as multiple villains hide beneath the surface of this eleventh adventure starring Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner Joe Sandilands...[An] involving tale, marked by historical, cultural, and literary references, stiff-upper-lip dialogue, and occasionally surprising wittiness."
-- "Booklist"