Opal Serpent

A pawnbroker lies dead in his locked shop, his lips pinned together with an opal serpent broach, a grotesque detail that suggests something far more personal than robbery. Detective Hurd must navigate the murky waters of inheritance and identity: the dead man's beautiful daughter claims her father's fortune, until a mysterious rival emerges from nowhere, insisting she is the true heir. As Hurd digs deeper into the pawnbroker's past, he discovers that everyone connected to the old man seems to have secrets, and the serpent on that broach coils through the mystery like something ancient and venomous. Fergus Hume, the writer who outsold Sherlock Holmes in his day, weaves a Victorian puzzle box of false identities, suppressed truths, and the dark matter of family secrets. The novel blends gothic atmosphere with the rigid social hierarchies of 1890s Melbourne, where a woman's identity could mean the difference between wealth and poverty, safety and ruin. For readers who savor the elaborate plots and period texture of Wilkie Collins or Mary Elizabeth Braddon.