The Crime Club

The year is 1910. Sir Paul Westerham has inherited a vast fortune and a title he never wanted, but nothing prepares him for the moment he glimpses a portrait of Lady Kathleen Carfax, daughter of the Prime Minister, and determines to make her his wife. His pursuit leads him onto the decks of the Atlantic liner Gigantic, where he crosses paths with Captain Melun: a dangerous, calculating man who carries secrets in his kit-bag and blackmail in his heart. Melun has been terrorizing Lady Kathleen, threatening to destroy her family's reputation unless she yields to his demands. Now both men want the same woman, but one seeks love while the other seeks ruin. What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse game across the Atlantic and into the dark corridors of English power, where the Crime Club, a secretive syndicate of criminals, pulls strings from the shadows. Sir Paul must navigate a world of deception, outmaneuver a villain who holds all the cards, and rescue a woman he's never even spoken to from ignominy. This is early crime fiction in its pulp infancy: romantic, melodramatic, and utterly unapologetic about its own dramatic instincts.