In Gray's gripping second novel to feature Edmund Whitty (after 2003's The Fiend in Human
), the Victorian journalist agrees to go undercover to expose a phony psychic. At a séance in a dilapidated London town house, Whitty is contacted by the spirit of his brother, David, a highly successful Oxford scholar and athlete who drowned mysteriously during a crew race years earlier. Meanwhile, at Crouch Manor in Oxfordshire, the Rev. William L. Boltbyn (inspired by Lewis Carroll) enjoys photographing young girls and then placing small white stones in his diary to mark particularly good days. Boltbyn's current subjects are Emma and Lydia Lambert, daughters of a cold and distant fellow cleric who's oblivious to the dangers they face. These intrigues eventually intersect when Whitty receives a compromising photograph of his late brother with a young girl resembling Emma. Punctuated by graphic newspaper reports, clever poems and puzzles, this thriller builds to a tense and riveting climax. (Dec.)
