London calling

Former Secret Service operative Mirabelle Bevan takes a holiday from her Brighton debt-collection agency when her business partner, Vesta Churchill (no relation), needs help. Vesta's childhood friend, a jazz musician, has been accused of abducting and possibly murdering a London debutante. Mirabelle grabs her gloves and heads to London to clear his name. Sheridan offers the reader a sneak peak into the university clubs and jazz bars of 1950s London. If Mirabelle swigged back less whiskey, one might be tempted to call her plucky. But she's a former secret agent still mourning the loss of her married lover, and she's no ingenue. She's ahead of her time in her easy friendship with a black business partner and uses her own privileged past to open doors to a closed society that may hold the answers to the missing heiress' whereabouts. A series that deserves a long run.--Keefe, Karen Copyright 2017 Booklist

Set in 1952, Sheridan's satisfying second Mirabelle Bevan mystery (after 2016's Brighton Belle) opens with the disappearance of debutante Rose Bellamy Gore, who was last seen at a London jazz club in the company of saxophonist Lindon Claremont. Lindon, a childhood friend of Vesta Churchill, Mirabelle's partner in the debt collection agency that the pair run in Brighton, calls at their office the day after Rose goes missing for advice. He agrees he should cooperate with the police, who regard him with extra suspicion because he's black. Lindon returns to London, where he subsequently dies in police custody, an apparent suicide. Tough and glamorous Mirabelle, who worked for British intelligence during WWII, travels with Vesta to London, where she calls on police acquaintances and former war colleagues for clues; she also visits some jazz clubs. The story grows progressively darker as Sheridan delves into issues of race and class-not to mention loyalty and abuse of power-in this extraordinarily rich historical. Agent: Jenny Brown, Jenny Brown Associates (U.K.). (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.