In the acknowledgments to this immersive debut, Walsh explains that she took a novel-writing course partly to convince herself not to write this series opener; readers will be happy that she went ahead anyway. Walsh drops us deep into the world of Minnie Ward, who writes music for Victorian London’s Variety Palace Music Hall. The shabby venue hosts a plate spinner whose dressing room sounds like breaking crockery and sobs, a soprano who only sometimes hits a note, a wayward monkey that likes to have its way with the ventriloquist’s dummy, and other downmarket wonders. When kindly detective Albert Easterbrook is hired to find the killer of a young woman who worked at the Palace, it brings him into Minnie’s world. She’s not content to sit on the sidelines of the investigation—she knows far more than Albert does about the workings of her realm, not to mention that those he needs to question aren’t going to open themselves up to a “toff.” While working through his exasperation with headstrong Minnie, Albert begins to fall for her, a situation she rebuffs as it will never work out—class divides loom large here. Their sometimes-parallel, sometimes-together work exposes both to dangers and horrors that will keep readers rapt; a side plot involving a serial killer who is terrorizing London closes the book and creates an opening for a sequel, which readers will eagerly await.
