Cover of Kept

Kept

Madness, greed, love, obsession, Machiavellian plotting, and a great train robbery, in a captivating Victorian mystery about the extreme and curious things men do to get—and keep—what they want

August 1863. Henry Ireland, a failed landowner, dies unexpectedly in a riding accident, leaving a highly strung young widow. Not far away lives Ireland's friend James Dixey, a celebrated naturalist who collects strange trophies—a stuffed bear, a pet mouse, and a wolf that he keeps caged in the grounds of his decaying house, lost in the fog on the edge of the fens.

Read more

The poachers, Dewar and Dunbar, with their cargo of pilfered eggs; Esther the observant kitchen maid, pining to be reunited with her vanished admirer; the ancient lawyer Mr. Crabbe, made careless by snobbery; John Carstairs, in search of his cousin, the elusive widow; an enigmatic debt-collector, busily plotting an audacious robbery; various lowlife henchmen; a beady-eyed country curate who sees more than he should; and Captain McTurk of Scotland Yard, patiently investigating the circumstances of Mr. Ireland's death and many other things besides—all are drawn into a net of intrigue with wide and sinister implications.

Ranging from the loch-sides of Scotland to the slums of Clerkenwell, from the gentlemen's clubs of St. James's to the Yukon wilds, Keptis a gorgeously intricate novel about the urge to possess, at once a gripping investigation of some of the secret chambers of the human heart and a dazzling reinvention of Victorian life and passions.

Genre
historical fictionvictorianbritish mysterymysteryhistorical mystery
Setting
victorian19th centuryenglandlondon
Subject
history
Audience
adult
Length
long · 454 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Kept? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Kept. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Dark Lantern Shares historical fiction, mystery, victorian
  2. The Glass of Time Shares historical fiction, mystery, victorian
  3. The Pleasures of Men Shares historical fiction, mystery, victorian
  4. The Meaning of Night Shares historical fiction, mystery, fiction

“People who read Kept tend to reach for these next.”

  1. A Most Dangerous Woman
  2. A Dangerous Affair
  3. The Unburied
  4. The Minutes of the Lazarus Club

“If you want more of the same (historical fiction), start with these.”

  1. A Corpse in Shining Armour
  2. The Mesmerist's Apprentice
  3. Bedlam
  4. The Last Dickens

“If it was the mystery that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Quincunx
  2. By Gaslight
  3. The Music of the Spheres
  4. A Flaw in the Blood

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Moore Field School and the Mystery
  2. Corpse Candle
  3. Niceville
  4. Power In The Blood