The scream of sins

Nickson's latest in his acclaimed Simon Westow series (after The Dead Will Rise, 2023) is a dark, gritty page-turner set in nineteenth-century Leeds, England. Westow is a thieftaker who recovers lost or stolen items for his clients. He's hired by wealthy Leeds citizen Captain Holcomb to retrieve a set of valuable documents Holcomb believes were stolen by his housemaid, Sophie. Then Sophie and her boyfriend turn up murdered, and Simon wonders if he's taken on more than just retrieving stolen goods. Holcomb refuses to say what the papers contain, and when Simon urges him to share the information with the police after Sophie's murder, Holcomb fires Simon and threatens him with a libel suit. Simon determines to pursue the case, but when he does, he finds a dreadful, stomach-turning secret involving a ring of men who kidnap little girls to order for some of Leeds' wealthiest citizens. A complex plot with multiple twists combined with realistic period ambience and vivid characters make this a riveting read.

In 1824, a thief-taker's new assignment almost destroys him and those he loves. Simon Westow receives a note from wealthy Captain Holcomb, a retired military officer, who wants to meet to discuss a missing item. A package of documents belonging to Holcomb's dead father, a much-hated magistrate, has been stolen, possibly by the upstairs maid, Sophie Jackson. As he's done so often before, Simon partners with Jane, a ruthless killer, who fades into the background on the mean streets of Leeds, where shocking disparities between the haves and have-nots are all too apparent. Jane finds that the Jackson family has absconded, and soon Sophie's boyfriend is found murdered. Holcomb claims that the papers have value only to him, but someone is clearly willing to kill for them. A tip from Sally, a sharp-eyed street urchin, leads to Sophie, who's had time to hide the package before she too is found dead. Sally leads them next to 8-year-old Emma, who was kidnapped along with her 4-year-old sister, Harriet, by two men who sold Harriet but discarded Emma as being too old. Emma begs Jane to help find Harriet; Jane supplies her with warm clothes and a place to stay, little knowing that Emma will be the key to a horrendous series of crimes. When Holcomb tells Simon not to give his name to the constable, Simon, fed up after three deaths, quits working for him. Realizing they have stumbled onto perversions so horrible that even the constable is disturbed, Simon and his team go all out to find Harriet, only to discover crimes even worse than they'd imagined. A dark and complex mystery that contrasts genuine honor with the false tokens paraded by the upper classes. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.