A Twist of Murder by Heather Redmond

I love the sleuthing bit of Charles Dickens and in this victorian England setting this was a wonderfully descrptive read. Coupled with his writing and detective skills, Dickens was such a humane and generous soul. Appalled by living conditions of the poor, his was a constant struggle to uplift whoever he could. When he discovers three orphans whom he had registered for a school disappeared and then the murder of a young girl, he is distraught first at the death of this twelve year old and then the disappearance of the three young boys and he is hoping that the two events are not linked. Charles is just weeks away from his marriage and his intended in laws are anyway not very happy with him. When Kate joins him in his quest to find the boys and solve the murder, Charles knows he has to deal with this quickly. This is a very busy story - there is Victorian England at its worst - the attitude towards the poor was appalling, the poverty was rampant, even parents were hard to fathom, there is a cholera epidemic going on and the girl was apparently killed because of a treasure map she kept hinting and waving about. Trying to solve it all made it a very busy story. Interesting but a lot of strands to follow on. Sent by Kensington Books for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley.