The Red Monarch

The third story in Bella Ellis’ series of historical mysteries featuring the inimitable Brontë siblings finds the sisters, together with wastrel brother Bramwell, continuing their career as amateur detectives, this time pitched against the power of the London underworld and its shadowy overlord, known only by his symbol depicting a rare butterfly, The Red Monarch.

Much of the action is set in the area of London now known as Covent Garden and Soho, but in 1846 it was the infamous Rookery of St Giles, home to the most desperate of London’s down-and-outs, thieves, robbers and murderers where the kidnapping young girls for prostitution was all too common.

The sisters’ first poetry collection has just been published when Anne receives a desperate letter from her former pupil Lydia Robinson, pregnant by a young actor she’s eloped with. Lydia and Harry Roxby are now living in poverty in London and they are in trouble. Harry has somehow become entangled with a dangerous criminal gang, led by the dreaded ‘Noose,’ the overlord of the Rookery. The gang are now holding Harry captive, demanding the return of something precious allegedly stolen by him. Lydia is given one week to return the item or Harry will be killed – and she will be next., along with her unborn child

The sisters travel to London where they face a race against time to save Lydia and Harry. With them comes Bramwell, still as much of an emotional liability as ever, but still hoping to prove himself to Lydia’s mother, his former lover,

Ellis’ attention to period detail is, as always, impressive and she makes great use of her settings, both the theatre and the slums. No Victorian penny dreadful could describe as adequately yet as delicately the disgusting trade in girls’ bodies, the poverty, filth and squalor of the Rookeries and the absolute hypocrisy and depravity of some of the so-called upper classes.

The sisters themselves are all engaging characters. The level-headed Charlotte, sees herself in loco parentis to her sisters; Anne is fiery and passionate; Emily is free-spirited, outdoor loving and adventurous. The sisters are devoted to each other, despite occasional exasperation. Here it is Emily who steals centre stage, partly by her very nature. For the first time in her life, the woman who thought herself a confirmed spinster, finds herself attracted to a man and struggles to cope with her feelings.

Ellis’ main supporting characters illustrate the inequalities of the time so well. The beautiful and talented actress and singer Kit Thornfield, forced to submit to the attentions of a wealthy patron to support her uncertain stage earnings, and the good looking and roguish actor Louis Parensell, who becomes Emily’s unlikely love interest, both play their parts to the full – Parensell in particular as the unlikely hero of a typical piece of Victorian-Gothic romantic fiction, with more than a hint of the tempestuous Heathcliff in his character.

When Ellis (real name Rowan Coleman, the pseudonym another tribute to her Brontë fixation), introduced the siblings, I had some doubts about the use of famous historical characters in the role of amateur detectives. Three books in, the down-to-earth Yorkshire trio have completely won me over and I look forward to their future adventures. The Red Monarch is a superb mystery that kept me enthralled until the final page.