A Lark's Regret

If there is one thing Verity Lark finds more unsettling than having to give a shooting lesson to the woman whom she has ridiculed in print for months, it is having to give the lesson on the very same morning her alter ego Mr. Twaddle-Thum publishes an apology for erroneously reporting a key detail of one of her favorite subject’s early murder investigations.

The mortifying mistake is made intolerable by the fact that it was uncovered by a rival gossip for another newspaper. Identifying herself as Mrs. Flimmer-Flam, she vows to correct a whole host of other misapprehensions about the Duchess of Kesgrave, whom she calls the murder duchess for obvious reasons.

Oh, but, no, her reasons are not obvious at all, for this new scandal merchant believes the public has been greatly misled in regard to her grace’s talents. She is not just solving murders; she is also committing them.

It is preposterous nonsense—and that is to say nothing of her portrayal of Twaddle as a credulous dupe gulled into mythologizing a killer—and Verity vows to discover who is spreading the virulent lies, a task that grows immeasurably harder after she finds the gossip’s throat slashed.

Someone is willing to kill to hide the truth, and Verity has no idea who might be next.

Welcome to the fifth installment of the Verity Lark Mysteries, where secrets run deep and every move could be her last.