The Blackstone Key – Rose Melikan

Giving up life as a schoolteacher on the hope of better prospects with her wealthy estranged uncle, Mary Finch travels from Cambridge to the Suffolk coast. The journey by coach and the people she encounters open up Mary’s view of the world, but one particular incident is to have major consequences on the direction her life takes. Near Ipswich, the coach party come across a man who has been injured by the roadside. Mary stops off to look after him until help arrives, and finds that the injured man has a watch belonging to her uncle.

Accompanied by a kindly army office, Captain Holland, Mary arrives at her uncle’s estate to find that there are other suspicious activities taking place in and around the house late at night. The year being 1795, the activities could be those of freetraders and smugglers, but the discovery of coded letters found among her uncle’s papers suggests that there is a traitor in their midst conspiring with the French Revolutionaries at war with England.

There’s definitely a female spin on events, the plucky and enterprising Mary not only finding herself embroiled in a spy adventure, but also finding her feelings torn between the brave Captain Holland and the handsome Mr. Déprez from St. Lucia, who is investigating the situation. The romantic aspect is well handled and  doesn’t in any way hinder the story or make the twists and turns any less compelling, since Mary’s uncertain feelings towards each of the men is further complicated when she realises there is every possibility that one of them might actually be a spy. With strong characterisation that keeps revealing new facets to the characters and an intriguing spy mystery, the author holds the reader throughout, right up to the thrilling conclusion on the dangerous streets of London.