Bøger af B. K. Duncan

Smuggling. Prostitution. Murder.London. 1920 and coroner's officer May Keaps is tasked with solving the mystery that surrounds the death of a young boy, found drowned in The Thames.But was it murder or an accident?May knows that when children go missing, the reason is often linked to money but she is in danger of underestimating the corrupting influence of power . . .On streets where poverty and exploitation walk hand-in-hand everyone has a price. And some are more valuable dead than alive. But who is pulling the strings?May must journey into the dark underbelly of London to find the answers.

It is March 1920. May Keaps, the Poplar Coroner's Officer, has never failed to provide a jury with sufficient evidence to arrive at a just verdict.The poverty, drunken fights between visiting sailors, drug trafficking, and criminal gangs, haunting the shadows of the busiest docks in the world, mean that the Coroner sees more than its fair share of sudden and unnatural deaths.May relishes the responsibility placed upon her but there are many who believe it's an unsuitable job for a woman. Even May begins to wonder if that is the case when the discovery of a young man's body, in a Limehouse alley, plunges her into an underworld of opium dens, gambling, turf wars, protection rackets and murder.As her investigations draw her into danger, it becomes increasingly clear that whoever is responsible intends to avoid the hangman's noose by arranging to have May laid out on one of her own mortuary slabs.