The Mystery of the Hidden Room

Carlton Davies receives a desperate note from Ruth, the woman he never stopped loving, and rushes to the estate of her wealthy husband Philip Darwin, only to find the man dead on the floor at midnight, with Ruth standing over the body, a gun still in her trembling hand. She insists she's innocent. The jury disagrees. Now behind bars, Ruth has one hope: Carlton, armed with nothing but his devotion and a first-person account that pulls readers into the heart of her fight for survival. The hidden room of the title holds more than one secret, and as Carlton digs deeper into the Darwin household, he discovers that the man who blackmailed Ruth into marriage had enemies, motives, and a talent for cruelty that ran far deeper than any one murder. Marion Harvey constructs her mystery with the patience of a chess master, laying traps for both her detective and her reader. The result is a book that works as both a propulsive whodunit and a sharp examination of what love costs when the law has already pronounced its verdict. For fans of Golden Age mysteries who want their crime with a romantic heart beating beneath it.