Joan Lock 
Dead Born 
A Detective Sergeant Best Mystery 2

‘A gripping and satisfying murder mystery with an unguessable final twist’ – Mystery Women
‘[A] gripping Victorian mystery’ – Publishers Weekly
‘Asking an historian to review a historical novel is asking for trouble – but Joan Lock’s book is something else. Her knowledge of London and its policing in the 19th century makes this into a very different kind of novel – one with an extremely realistic setting’ – London Archive Users Forum
When the bodies of a number of babies are found scattered around Islington, Detective Sergeant Best is sent undercover to lodge next door to a suspected baby farm. He shadows an alleged 'child dropper' onto a Thames pleasure steamer and finds himself caught up in Britain's worst civilian tragedy — the 1878 sinking of the Princess Alice — a horrific experience which will haunt Best forever. Meanwhile, his determination to avenge the death of a young girl he had befriended and save the life of another becomes a crusade.