: Georgina Clarke
: The Dazzle of the Light
: Verve Books
: 9780857308313
: 1
: CHF 7.40
:
: Historische Romane und Erzählungen
: English
: 320
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

A sparkling new historical novel set in the 1920s, inspired by the notorious all-female crime syndicate known as the Forty Thieves who operated out of the slums of south London.


Ruby Mills is ruthlessly ambitious, strikingly beautiful - and one of the Forty Thieves' most talented members.


Harriet Littlemore writes the women's section in a local newspaper. She's from a 'good' London family and engaged to an up-and-coming Member of Parliament - but she wants a successful career of her own.


After witnessing Ruby fleeing the scene of a robbery, Harriet develops a fascination with the elusive young thief that extends beyond journalistic interest. As their personal aspirations bring them into closer contact than society's rules usually allow, Ruby and Harriet's stories become increasingly intertwined.


Their magnetic dynamic, fraught with envy and desire, tells a compulsive, cinematic story about class, morality and the cost of being an independent woman in 1920s London.

1

London, February 1920

Saturday morning

Ruby Mills runs her knuckles along the mink collar, enjoying the softness of the fur. The coat is perfect. She will look like a queen.

‘I’ll try this one.’ The words are addressed to the shop assistant, but she talks to the coat.

She doesn’t need to see the girl. She’s already noted everything about her: lank hair, too many teeth and a badly picked spot on her chin. Trussed up in soullessnavy – the uniform of one of London’s smartest stores. Ruby is indifferent to her. But if she bothered to turn her attention from the coat, she would observe the assistant staring, open-mouthed, at the shiny black bobbed hair, the powdered face, the deep red stain on the lips.

Ruby Mills, although barely older than the girl at the counter, could bea film star.

Ruby knows the shop assistant will be staring. She is used to the stares. It’s part of it. Part of the fun. She swings around now to repeat her demand, adding a hint of impatience.

‘This one?’

The girl starts out of her daydream, snaps her mouth shut and hurries from behind the wide mahogany counter to remove the coat from the hanger. She helps Ruby put it on, taking her own surreptitious stroke of the fur as she smooths the shoulders and breathes in the waft of expensive French scent.

Ruby admires her reflection in the full-length gilt mirror. Yes, this will be the one.

She frowns.

‘No. There’s something not quite right.’ She keeps her words crisp and clipped – a world away from the Cockney drawl she ordinarily uses. ‘It needs… It needs…?’ There’s a querying lilt in her tone now as she draws the girl into the game, stretching her neck to reveal a triangle of bare flesh at her throat.

‘A scarf of some sort, madam?’ The girl ventures. ‘We have silk…’

Ruby tilts her head, considering. It’s quiet in this corner of the store. She can take her time. Just the two of them in the side room and all these beautiful things laid out on the table and counter for her to look at. Scarves, gloves of buttoned silk, a chinchilla stole with light brown ribbons.

‘Yes… I think you might be right, you clever thing. Something in scarlet, perhaps.’

‘Scarlet silk?’ The girl repeats, more earnest now, wanting to get it right. Her manager will be most impressed. She imagines the commission.

Scarlet is a daring shade for a store like this, and, although they sell them, Ruby knows that there is no scarlet silk scarf on open display. The girl will need to go to the back room to fetch on