The Story of Charles Strange: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)

A young wife's desperate testimony places her at the mercy of suspicion in this atmospheric Victorian sensation novel. Lady Level claims she witnessed a shadowy figure stabbing her husband, but Lord Level refuses to believe her, leaving his young wife trapped between a brutal attack and the whispers of society. When Inspector Poole arrives at Marshdale House to investigate, every character becomes a suspect, and Lady Level finds herself the most dangerous one of all: a woman whose truth sounds like fiction. Mrs. Henry Wood, whose "East Lynne" drove Victorian readers to tears and sold in the millions, returns with all her signature gifts: coiled suspense, social critique dressed as melodrama, and an innocent woman crushed between society's expectations and a husband's cold distrust. This is genre fiction at its most addictive, the 19th century's answer to the psychological thriller, where the real mystery may not be who held the knife, but whether a woman's word will ever be believed.