Lavender Reed, Bow Street Runner and his¿daughter, ¿Calista, you may have met in my¿earlier book, ¿Murder Most Foul (2021).¿¿Cally, as she is known, is Anglo-Indian.¿ ¿¿
The present story is set in the first half of¿the 19th¿century, during the Napoleonic¿wars and the Regency period.¿ Cally¿and her adoptive sister, Polly, rebel¿against almost every rule in the book.¿ At a time when most young women of¿their class are housebound, decorous and¿docile, the sisters are activists in the causes¿of prison reform, the abolition of slavery¿and the long campaign for universal¿suffrage.¿ In 1820, they are party to the¿Cato Street conspiracy. They attend Quaker¿meetings, although atheist.¿¿Their dress is often unorthodox, including¿breeches when always riding astraddle, ¿never¿side-saddle.¿
They make no secret of their love for each¿other, when sapphic love is unknown or¿unmentionable.¿ They share the mothering of an adopted¿black orphan girl, whose mother was äslave from Benin.¿