The Scent of Death

London, 1912. As shoppers stroll along Oxford Street, a smiling clown drops tiny parachutes into the crowd from a nearby rooftop… 

People scramble for them, finding a wind-up mouse inside a lovely glittery package. 

One street over, Walter Fischer’s Jewellery Shop is robbed, his safe blown open, and everything taken. 

New Scotland Yard, and Chief Superintendent Milton says changes are being made. 

Some men are being let go, and the ones who remain are being held to a higher standard, including not sleeping with witnesses or reporters for information, unless absolutely necessary. 

Inspector Pilgrim, the star of Scotland Yard, is looking for help investigating the robbery, since his regular sergeant is sick. 

He chooses PC Braddock, new to the force. As they investigate the robbery, Pilgrim teaches him the tricks of the trade. 

Visiting his brother in law, who has connections to the seedier part of London, he gets a list of men with the skill needed to blow a safe using gelignite. 

As they start to make their way through the list, a body shows up on Kensington high Street, outside a boarding home for single career girls in the city…

Pilgrim and Braddock soon learn that several of the women have been drugged, only to wake to find their handbags and one shoe missing. 

Now they find themselves investigating three cases. 

The body turns out to be that of Mr. Sigmund Preedy, a notorious womaniser. 

When Pilgrim visits the shop where the girls work, none of them recognise his picture, but pilgrim learns one girl returned to her home in Sheffield just after the murder. 

Now, he only has to track her down. 

Meanwhile, they work their way through the names on his list, Pilgrim knowing they are getting closer. 

But how will a ballet dancer, a clown that has been dead for years, and a little boy with a bandaged nose lead him to the robbers?

The Scent of Death is a must for fans of cosy crime and Sherlock Holmes.