Modern Flirtations: A Novel

Victorian London's social scene gleams with vanity and danger. Retired Admiral Sir Arthur Dunbar reads a newspaper puff piece celebrating his own life and exchanges wry words with his young relative Louis De Crespigny, whose reckless charm and scheming represent everything the old sailor distrusts about modern flirtation. But beneath the balls and courtship lies something sinister: dark plots involving love and murder that will shatter the comedy. Sinclair's satirical eye spares no one in this generation-spanning portrait of reputation, ambition, and the dangerous games people play in pursuit of what they want. The wit is sharp, the social commentary incisive, and the moral universe distinctly Victorian in its concerns with propriety and its anxieties about what lies beneath polished surfaces. For readers who enjoy sharp social satire mixed with genuine menace.