The answer to the mystery that Hester and Rebekah set out to solve – and I started with high hopes of the two female investigators – is perhaps predictable but the details are dense and colourful though at times needlessly confusing.

At its heart is a gruesome Victorian murder mystery and the love of two women. It would benefit from some robust editing. This is a melodramatic rollercoaster which in places grew so convoluted that I at first re-read passages, but then simply skipped paragraphs. Being female hinders their attempts to investigate and they put themselves into increasingly dangerous situations in their efforts to gather evidence. As the women set out to discover what happened to Hester’s missing cousin, and two servants who worked for Rebekah, they enter into an underworld neither guessed exists. What follows is a story of lies laid upon more lies, murder, theft, friendship and love. He takes Hester to Waterford, his childhood home in the country, where he lives with his sister Rebekah and their Uncle Septimus.

Brock rescues her as an experiment in educating the poor. Ashamed of her bad luck – growing up at a country parsonage, she was orphaned and taken in by her parents’ servants whose own income declined so now they live in an East End slum – Hester hides her education with a deftly-adopted London accent. Cared for by his servants, he questions Hester about her birth.

When 18-year old Hester White is hit by a carriage, physician Calder Brock takes her to his London home. The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin is a 19 th century crime thriller with two women, divided by class and background, who are determined to find the truth but who never once suspect the depth of wickedness they will uncover. In the dark alleyways of London, in 1831, people are disappearing the vulnerable poor, children, elderly, homeless.

The wicked cometh by laura carlin