Meet Bella Wallis- a charismatic Victorian widow with a sideline in sensationalist novels and a fierce determination to seek revenge in print for what can never be achieved in real life
Brian Thompson was born in London in 1935 and now lives in Oxford. He has written two award-winning volumes of memoir- Keeping Mum (2006), winner of the Costa Prize for Biography and the PEN/Ackerley Prize, and Clever Girl (2007), longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.
"The Widow's Secret drops us headfirst into the realm of 19th-century sensation fiction - the lurid stuff of Wilkie Collins and old-fashioned penny dreadfuls. Although Brian Thompson is best known for his recent memoirs he's equally convincing on murder, mystery and the Victorians. As the curtain-raiser for a new detective series, this novel is a bold beginning. Thompson is clearly having the time of his life here. He revels in the vigilante justice, ribald talk and Dickensian grotesques at his disposal" Sunday Telegraph "A neo-Victorian yarn that rattles on merrily and rings true. We are told that more instalments of Bella's exploits are on the way. Let them come, say I" -- John Sutherland Financial Times "Thompson specialises in sharp, elliptical dialogue and brisk little glances into the murk that rises beyond Bella's window" -- D. J. Taylor Guardian "Brian Thompson writes well and there's a rich vein of humour" Daily Mail "Entertaining, indeed dazzling. Dickensian in its humour, its vivid evocation of a criminal underworld, and the poverty and filth of the Victorian city" Times Literary Supplement
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