Dead End

When Phoebe Threapleton is found dead on a four-poster bed in Bainbridge’s department store with six long-stemmed white roses next to her, Inspector Best is baffled...

How does the death in Newcastle of this young woman fit in with the other missing-girl cases in the area, and was Phoebe really as snow-white as her reputation, and the roses, might imply?

Best’s initial investigations point him towards the shadowy world of spiritualism, but this proves as difficult to penetrate as the potential motives of the dozens of suspects – from Phoebe’s maid to the Bainbridges themselves.

Dead End is the fourth in the Inspector Best series by Joan Lock. The other titles are Dead Image, Dead Born, Dead Fall, Dead Letters, Dead Loss, Dead Centre and Death in Perspective.

I had decided to set a book amongst the Victorian shop workers whom I understood had some pretty bad working conditions. I also thought it would be a good idea for Best to get out of London for a while, partly to recover from the awful tragedy which overtook  him at the close of  DEAD LETTERS.    Newcastle-upon-Tyne where I had spent the latter part of my childhood seemed to be appropriate as did Bainbridges, one of the worlds first department stores. As it happened, the store now belonged to the John Lewis Partnership for whom I worked part time as an in-house journalist and their archives were in Milton Keynes, which made  life easier. But it was clear that a trip north would be necessary for further research.  It turned out  that the workers conditions were not so bad after all, as the Bainbridges had been ardent methodists. Even so, their staff rules, and the subsequent fines for breaking them, could be eye-opening.    From the Back CoverAddEmptyA