THE MURDER OF PATIENCE BROOKE by JC Briggs, £8.99 ISBN 978-0-750954433

IN THIS gripping murder mystery, South Lakeland author Jean Briggs explores how Charles Dickens might have acted in the role of detective.

Set in the spring of 1849 – at around the time he wrote David Copperfield – the atmospheric novel tells how Dickens becomes embroiled in the search for the man who cut the throat of the eponymous Patience Brooke, an assistant matron at the home the writer established in real life for fallen women.

As Dickens and Superintendent Jones of Bow Street follow the clues, it soon becomes apparent that a serial killer is on the loose; and the pair rapidly become involved in a race against time to find the murderer before someone else dies.

The author is a former English teacher in Hong Kong and Lancashire. She is married to an artist and lives in Sedbergh.