Mel is an unemployed recent university graduate when she runs into her almost-stepmother, Nola, whom she had last seen at her father's funeral. Nola offers her a job as a literary detective--find out who wrote The Scarlet Rider, so the press Nola works for, which publishes only female writers, can publish the book. Mel is sworn to secrecy, and particularly warned about a fellow-researcher who has his own plans for the book. If he's the villain of the piece, it's a very everyday villainy, a reminder of the saying that academic politics are vicious because the stakes are so small. In the course of researching Victorian literature, police, and gold-mining, Mel finds out quite a bit about her own past.

Nothing shocking--this is a novel in the old-fashioned sense, not a work of horror.

Author

Lucy Sussex

Lucy Sussex was born in New Zealand in 1957. She has degrees in English and Librarianship from Monash University, and is a freelance researcher, editor and writer. She has published widely, writing anything from literary criticism to horror and detective stories. In addition she is a literary archaeologist, rediscovering and republishing the nineteenth-century Australian crime writers Mary Fortune and Ellen Davitt. Her short story, `My Lady Tongue' won a Ditmar (Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award) in 1988. In 1994 she was a judge for the international Tiptree award, which honours speculative fiction exploring notions of gender. Her first adult novel, The Scarlet Rider, is about biography, Victorian detective fiction, voodoo and a ghost.

Country of Origin
Blog 2018 Reading Reminiscences
Karen Chisholm
Monday, January 7, 2019
Review Sherlock Holmes, The Australian Casebook, ed Christopher Sequiera
Karen Chisholm
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Blog #amreading Sherlock Holmes, The Australian Casebook, edited by Christopher Sequeira
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Review Review - Blockbuster! Fergus Hume and The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Lucy Sussex
Karen Chisholm
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Blog #amreading Blockbuster! Fergus Hume and the Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Lucy Sussex
Karen Chisholm
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Review WOMEN WRITERS AND DETECTIVES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY CRIME FICTION - Lucy Sussex
Karen Chisholm
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Review THE FORTUNES OF MARY FORTUNE - Lucy Sussex (ed)
Karen Chisholm
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Blog Currently Reading - The Fortunes of Mary Fortune, Lucy Sussex (ed)
Karen Chisholm
Monday, November 2, 2009
Review MEANER THAN FICTION - Lindy Cameron (ed)
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Blog Currently Reading - Meaner than Fiction, Lindy Cameron
Karen Chisholm
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Review SHADOW ALLEY - Lucy Sussex
Karen Chisholm
Monday, September 17, 2007
ISBN
0812549236
Year of Publication
Publisher

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