Fox Dangerous

The riveting, dazzling new historical thriller from the SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING author of The Fascination
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-916788-46-6
Verlag: Orenda Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 300 Seiten

When the disgraced Lord Byron is associated with the deaths of women in Venice, he turns detective to unveil the killer and clear his name. A dazzling, riveting historical mystery by the author of the Sunday Times bestseller, The Fascination. `Brooding and brilliant´ A.J. West `What could so easily have been a risible premise for a novel becomes, in Fox's expert hands, the starting point for an atmospheric thriller´ Sunday Times `As mesmerising and charismatic as Byron himself can ever have been ... a magnificent gothic tale of scandal, secrets and murder´ Janice Hallett `Evokes all the grimy charisma of eighteenth-century Venice ... a mystery as sinuous as the city's alleys and canals. I was enthralled´ Elizabeth Fremantle `A dark treat ... splendidly gothic and impressively researched´ Andrew Taylor `Essie Fox breathes new life into the 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' Lord Byron as the notorious poet turns detective ... Rich with decadent imagery and dark, gothic atmosphere, Dangerous intricately blends historical fact and fiction´ Culturefly ------- Fiction can be fatal... Living in exile in Venice, the disgraced Lord Byron revels in the freedoms of the city. SCANDAL But when he is associated with the deaths of local women, found with wounds to their throats, and then a novel called The Vampyre is published under his name, rumours begin to spread that Byron may be the murderer... MURDER As events escalate and tensions rise - and his own life is endangered, as well as those he holds most dear - Byron is forced to play detective, to discover who is really behind these heinous crimes. Meanwhile, the scandals of his own infamous past come back to haunt him... MYSTERY Rich in gothic atmosphere and drawing on real events and characters from Byron's life, Dangerous is a riveting, dazzling historical thriller, as decadent, dark and seductive as the poet himself... _________ `A plot as labyrinthine as the Venice backstreets, told in dazzling prose´ Erin Kelly `Brilliant, daring writing´ Anna Mazzola `Expertly weaves fact and fiction´ Anita Frank `Sumptuous, entertaining and glorious´ C.S. Green `Fox is the queen of darkly glittering gothic fiction ... I devoured it in one sitting´ Louisa Treger `Many writers have tried and failed to capture the Byronic quintessence, but the brilliant Essie Fox has succeeded admirably´ Alex Larman `Scandalously scintillating´ Kate Griffin `Gorgeously clever´ Amanda Craig `A ravishing tale of murder, lust and thwarted ambition´ Emma Carroll `A deliciously gothic and beautifully written historical thriller´ Frances Quinn `Captures the Byronic soul in all its beauty and madness´ Victoria Dowd `Deliciously dark´ Paul Burston `An engaging historical mystery´ Time & Leisure Magazine `Impeccably researched and compellingly told´ Bridget Walsh `What a ride! Gripping and atmospheric´ Caroline Lea `Fastidiously researched, richly imagined, full of wonderful descriptions of Venice´ Michael Stewart

Essie Fox was born and raised in rural Herefordshire, which inspires much of her writing. After studying English Literature at Sheffield University, she moved to London where she worked for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine, then the book publishers George Allen & Unwin - before becoming self-employed in the world of art and design. Always an avid reader, Essie now spends her time writing historical gothic novels. Her debut, The Somnambulist, was shortlisted for the National Book Awards, and featured on Channel 4's TV Book Club. The Last Days of Leda Grey, set in the early years of silent film, was selected as The Times Historical Book of the Month. Her latest novel, The Fascination is based in Victorian country fairgrounds, the glamour of the London theatres, and an Oxford Street museum full of morbid curiosities. Essie is also the creator of the popular blog: The Virtual Victorian. She has lectured on this era at the V&A, and the National Gallery in London.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fox, Essie

Leseproben

‘His thousand songs are heard on high…’

Byron. From The Giaour

Oh, I am tired, & when I’m tired out comes all this & down it goes as lines of ink across a page. God only knows what contradictions this confession may contain, for I fear that one can lie more to one’s self than any others, & every word I am to write may then confute, refute, & utterly abjure all those before.

These past few hours I have recalled the old bull elephant that fled from a circus here in Venice. Sitting at this very window, I heard the shouting of the keepers, who, in vain, had tried to lure it to some ark they were constructing. One man was trampled to his death. I very nearly shared his fate. Venturing out on the canal, hoping to get a better view, I saw the creature tearing up the most enormous beams of wood, which were then flung into the water & missed my gondola by inches. I do not think its mood was angry, more of a playful disposition. But later, towards midnight, it turned to one of fury & with extraordinary strength the beast rampaged across the city. Musketry was employed but only proved to be in vain, until it broke into a church, where it was cornered & some soldiers fired a cannon at the beast. The first shot missed, but then the second found its mark & pierced the heart. I saw it dead the next day. Truly the most stupendous fellow. I was told it had gone mad for the wanting of a mate, for it had been the rutting month.

The want of women is my ruin…

Through the screeching of the gulls swooping across the Grand Canal, Byron set down his pen and muttered to himself, ‘And now I’m cornered in a trap from which I fear there’s no escape.’

His fingers gripped the silver base of the goblet with a bowl constructed from a human skull, once the relic of a monk who’d died some centuries before and was more recently discovered in the grounds of Newstead Abbey.

‘Ah, Newstead,’ Byron mused as he swallowed down the dregs of any wine still in the cup, and in his mind pictured again the dilapidated halls of the ancestral family home he’d sworn to never sell – which was another broken promise he could add to all the others.

A bitter smile played on his lips as mournful eyes caught the glitter of the candle at his side. One moment they looked blue, the next a grey, and then a violet. The whites were streaked with broken veins. The skin beneath was darkly bruised with the shadows of exhaustion as he turned towards the window where, an hour or so before, fizzing chrysanthemums of fireworks marked the end of Carnevale and lit the Venice skies with gold. Now, a dawn of rose-quartz blush appeared below black wings of night. The crumbling stones and iron grilles of the palazzos opposite loomed eerily above the veils of mist on the canal, in which the melancholy waters lapped as languid as desire.

Consumed with brooding ennui, Byron felt old. He was not old, yet in the course of thirty years what extremes of light and shade he had experienced in life. What heights of virtue, depths of vice he had discovered here in Venice, whether with whores in the brothels, or contessas in palazzos. But then, what was the local saying? Women, they have two pockets. One for tears, and one for lies…

Still pondering the loss of Newstead, he reached towards a silver box with the engraving of a mermaid and the ancient family crest. ‘Trust in Byron,’ he sighed as he lifted the lid to see a folded handkerchief with two initials stitched in silk. An acorn lay on top of it, the memento he’d once found in the grass below an oak tree where he’d kissed a lovely girl with hair as soft as burnished silk. She’d been as slender as a boy, flesh as pale and smooth to touch as any of the marble statues admired on his Grecian travels. Her name was Susan. Susan Vaughan. But Susan Vaughan had lied to him. Susan Vaughan, the maid from Wales who’d captured Byron in her spell, before she’d played him for a cuckold with another of his servants.

Why was he thinking of her now, of how she’d looked in a gown he’d brought back for her from London? Black trim of lace, like gossamer. The velvet lustre of the skirts, shimmering a forest green. When she’d worn it, who would guess at her humble origins? So fine the manners she’d affected, so pure the vowels as she’d disguised the natural lilt of her Welsh accent. And then, the night when they’d lain sated and sweat-soaked on his bed, and she’d recited lines from Shakespeare as well as any actress on the stage at Drury Lane. ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet?’

During such moments – reckless moments – empty promises were made about inviting her to London to meet the theatre managers. But left unspoken was the truth that he preferred his pretty maid kept on his private stage of Newstead. And surely, she had known his words were spun from nought but dreams. That come the dawn all dreams must fade.

For himself, there’d come the morning when Childe Harold was first published and life had changed beyond all measure, transformed into a gilded palace from a children’s fairy tale. Whether his palace had been gold, or rendered of a baser metal, he’d been subsumed into a whirlwind world of fame and adulation, besieged by women of the ton bent on offering him sex. Newstead Abbey was forgotten. So was Susan … until now.

What had become of the girl? For a long time he stared at hands where nails were bitten to the quicks, but at last he steeled himself to dip his pen into the ink and...