On the night of 18th April 1876, Charles Bravo staggered out of his bedroom calling desperately for hot water, and collapsed.
He is dying, but from what? According to the housekeeper, he said he's accidently taken poison but then why won't he tell any of the six doctors called in the next three days and save himself from a slow and agonising death?
Now his widow, Florence, must take the stand. But as the press and prosecution pick through past loves and petty tragedies, Florence has questions of her own - about the housekeeper, Mrs Cox; about her father-in-law, Joseph Bravo; and most of all abnout her husband - charming, ambitious, treacherous, Charles Bravo.
Dolores Gordon-Smith is the author of the Jack Haldean murder mystery series set in 1920’s England, the Dr. Anthony Brooke WW1 spy stories, and the introduction to the classic crime novel, The Ponson Case, for HarperCollins.
She hosts the How I Got Published column in the Warner Bros. Writing Magazine where she invites debut authors to share their journey to publication.
For the last three years, Dolores has been a popular speaker at Bodies from the Library, a day devoted to the Golden Age of crime fiction in the British Library.
Married with five daughters and various dogs and cats, Dolores has been a teacher, a civil servant and the front end of a cow in a pantomime.