Ladies in the Case

Trade paperback. They say that “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” — so what more fitting piece than a diamond necklace to involve more than one lady in a case involving burglary and murder? The Lienbaum diamond necklace is the ultimate McGuffin: we never once see it, but it passes through numerous hands and incites all manner of greed and bad behaviour — including homicide — in the London underworld. The suspicious death of a petty criminal draws barrister Everard Thurston into the murky case, and his friend, bacteriologist Tom Maxwell, joins in once he hears that there are women involved. Of course the police, led by Detective-Sergeant Coxon, eventually enter the fray, but in the meantime Maxwell and Thurston make progress in identifying the culprit who set events in motion. This is no straightforward case, and the investigators must sift through a host of colourful Cockney characters, each with their own vested interests.