Missing: Page Thirteen

Anna Katharine Green invented the female detective decades before the world was ready for her. Violet Strange is no mere curiosity, though. She's sharp, methodical, and operating in a world that barely acknowledges women can think. When a crucial page vanishes from a document that determines the fates of an eccentric misanthrope, a brilliant chemist, and a young couple about to wed, Violet must trace the paper trail through layers of deception. But the missing page is only the surface wound. As she digs, another mystery surfaces, one that has lain dormant for years, tangled in old betrayals and buried secrets. The pleasure here isn't just in the solution, but in watching a brilliant mind work, in seeing the Victorian era's rigid surfaces cracked open to reveal the human mess beneath. For readers who want their mysteries with wit, gender subversion, and the slow satisfaction of a puzzle solved by someone too often dismissed.