Garden of Sins

Victorian Mystery Book 6

by Laura Joh Rowland

Crooked Lane Books

Mystery: Historical

January 11, 2022

ISBN-10: 1643857940

ISBN-13: 9781643857947

Available in: Hardcover, e-Book

Garden of Sins
by Laura Joh Rowland

Award-winning author Laura Joh Rowland is back with the sixth in her critically acclaimed Victorian Mystery series in which Sarah must search for the killer of a woman she found murdered on a train all the while waiting for the verdict of her father’s trial for heinous crimes committed two decades earlier.

London, November 1890. Crime scene photographer Sarah Bain Barrett faces a perfect storm of events. She and her husband Detective Sergeant Barrett are riding on a train that crashes. While rescuing other passengers, they find a woman who’s been strangled to death. Their search for her identity and her killer lead them to Cremorne Gardens, a seedy riverside pleasure park that’s a combination carnival, theater, freak show, and museum of oddities. It’s among the most challenging cases that Sarah, Barrett, and her friends Lord Hugh Staunton and Mick O’Reilly have ever undertaken. The suspects include a dwarf, a female acrobat, and a member of the Royal Family. Due to the royal connection, the police commissioner declares the case top-secret. Sarah and company must investigate on the quiet, keeping the suspects, the press, and the public in the dark. That’s easier said than done. The investigation is complicated by the injury Hugh sustained during their last case, Mick’s romance with a woman who has psychic powers, and Barrett’s old flame.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s father Benjamin Bain goes on trial for a rape and murder that happened more than two decades ago. The victim was a teenage girl named Ellen Casey. Is Benjamin Bain as innocent as he claims? Sarah has serious doubts. The trial is the scandal of the year, a media blitz. The outcome—and the truth about the murder on the train—are beyond Sarah’s wildest imaginings. What dangerous secrets are hidden behind the tawdry glamor of Cremorne Gardens? Is Benjamin Bain wrongly accused, or a guilty sinner who deserves to be hanged?



Laura Joh Rowland's Bio

Laura Joh Rowland is a bestselling author of historical mystery novels. Her newest series stars Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer in Victorian London. The latest book is THE HANGMAN’S SECRET. Laura's previous series, which is set in medieval Japan and features samurai detective Sano Ichiro, has been published in 21 countries, been nominated for the Anthony Award and the Hammett Prize, won RT Magazine's Reader's Choice Award, and been included in The Wall Street Journal's list of the five best historical mystery novels. Laura has also written a historical suspense series about Charlotte Bronte, the famous Victorian author. Laura holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Michigan. She is a former aerospace scientist, a painter, and a cartoonist. She lives in New York City with her husband Marty.