1887, the year of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Trafalgar Square. London. Unrest has been building for days, the unemployed gathering daily to protest and nightly to sleep. The police are exhausted by extra duty; blamed for failing to do more to prevent the disorder, they grow increasingly bitter about the protesters’ accusations of brutality. When a prominent member of one of the new socialist organisations is found dead at the foot of Nelson’s Column, it only adds more fuel to the protesters’ fire. DI Best and Constable Roberts must juggle competing priorities as they search for the killer and attempt to manage the Trafalgar Square situation. To make matters worse, Best catches a glimpse of Stark, a man guilty of murder in Whitechapel—the only witness to the crime is Florence Bagnall, Roberts’s fiancé. As tensions rise and time begins to run out, Best realises that something terrible is about to happen…and that he may be powerless to stop it. ‘Gripping Victorian mystery’ – Publisher’s Weekly ‘Everyone with an interest in police history will know that Joan Lock has written a series of books notable for their perspicacity. and immaculate research. Scotland Yard Casebook is a new peak in her career, a fascinating account of the great and not-so-great detectives of a golden age. She has examined the official case files and put together a history told through the careers of policemen and giving a professional view of such dramatic events as the Turf Fraud Scandal, the Dynamite Campaign, the Jack the Ripper murders and the Anarchist outrages—side by side with stories previously ignored by historians, yet often crucial to the development of the CID. With a style that is authoritative, dispassionate and witty, Joan Lock has delivered a book of lasting importance.’ - Peter Lovesey The author of a number of fiction and non-fiction books, Joan Lock began her writing career in the 1980s as a regular contributor to Police Review. She worked for twenty years as a part-time in-house journalist for the John Lewis Partnership; upon retirement, she decided to try her hand at crime fiction. Her first fiction book, Dead Image, was published by Hale in 2000. In addition to writing, she occupies her time giving talks on writing crime, both fiction and non-fiction.