Electric Empire, Tome 2 : The Devious Dr Jekyll
Auteur
- Viola Carr (Écrivain)
Acheter neuf
Acheter d'occasion
Classement en biblio
extrait
A STAIN OF BREATH
WHERE’S THE BODY?” ELIZA JEKYLL SKIDDED eagerly into the frame-maker’s shop, clutching her doctor’s bag—and rocked back in dismay.
Not a corpse in sight.
The shop had been ransacked. Blue-coated police constables milled about, clambered over scattered oil paintings and frame parts. Arc-lit chandeliers crackled, shedding the stormy scent of aether, and through the windows glared a sullen, fog-bound yellow sun.
Inspector Harley Griffin of the Metropolitan Police—immaculate suit, sharply combed dark hair—waved her over. “What do you make of this, Doctor?”
Eliza pushed up her spectacles, frustrated. “It’s a pile of paintings, Harley, not a cadaver. Surely you need no crime scene physician to avail you of that.”
“Ah,” said Griffin imperturbably, “but it’s the art you don’t see that we’re interested in.”
“State-of-the-art police work, I’m sure.” Eliza sidestepped a constable, who promptly tripped over a rug in the crush and blundered into the scattered artworks, likely obliterating any trace evidence. “A dozen murders a night, the city bursting with bloodthirsty French spies, and our good Chief Inspector has the finest detective in London investigating a petty theft.”
Hippocrates, her clockwork assistant, jigged on hinged brass legs at her skirt hem. “Human remains absent,” he proclaimed in his tinny little voice. “Does not compute.”
Griffin tugged neat mustaches. “To be fair, the scenario does exercise the mind. The villain filched twenty-one artworks on Saturday night—”
She snorted. “And now it’s Monday. The evidence venerable as well as trampled. An even more irritating waste of my time.”
“—from under the noses of four security guards,” continued Griffin with a knowing smile. “Law-abiding citizens all, naturally. No one saw or heard a thing. No alarm raised, locks intact, every key accounted for.”
“A locked-room art heist,” she muttered, intrigued despite herself. “Impressive. What does Reeve want me to do about it? Test for incompetence?”
“Don’t get smart with me, missy.” Chief Inspector Reeve—newly appointed to that lofty rank—waddled up in an ugly brown suit, puffing self-importantly on a cigar. “You’re late. Getting your hair done?”
“My apologies, sir. Looking so pretty takes such a long time.”
Her sarcasm struck Reeve’s glaring aura of chauvinistic pig and bounced off. “Quite right, too. Put some color in your cheeks. All that unladylike science makes you peaky.”
Behind Reeve, Griffin rolled his eyes. Eliza barely noticed, possessed of a creeping, all-too-familiar itch to claw Reeve’s skin off . . . but it wasn’t her craving. It belonged to Lizzie Hyde, the shadowy second self inside her, thrashing to break free.
Afficher en entier
Livres ayant des thèmes similaires
Editeurs
Résumé
Dr. Eliza Jekyll, heroine of the electrifying The Diabolical Miss Hyde—an edgy steampunk retelling of the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—investigates a bizarre murder case in an alternate Victorian London while battling her treacherous secret half: Lizzie Hyde.
Solving the infamous Chopper case has helped crime scene physician Dr. Eliza Jekyll establish her fledgling career in the chauvinistic world of Victorian law enforcement. But the scrutiny that comes with her newfound fame is unwelcome for a woman with a diabolical secret. And there is the mercurial Royal Society agent and wolf man Remy Lafayette. Does he want to marry her, eat her, or burn her at the stake? Though Eliza is uncertain about Remy, her dark and jealous shadow self, Lizzie, wants to steal the magnetic and persistent agent, and usurp Eliza’s life.
It’s impossible to push Remy away when he tempts her with the one thing she can’t resist: a bizarre crime. The search for a bloodthirsty ritual torturer dubbed the Pentacle Killer draws them into a terrifying world of spies, art thieves, and evil alchemy, where the price of immortality is madness—or damnation—and only Lizzie’s dark ingenuity can help Eliza survive.
As Eliza and Remy race to thwart a foul conspiracy involving the sorcerous French, they must also overcome a sinister enemy who is all too close: the vengeful Lizzie, determined to dispose of Eliza for good.
Afficher en entier