When a young nurse dies on her watch, Florence Nightingale must uncover the deep-hidden secrets someone will kill to keep buried.
It is 1853. Lady of the Lamp Florence Nightingale has just accepted the position of Superintendent of the Establishment for Gentlewomen During Temporary Illness in London. She has hardly had time to learn the names of the nurses in her charge when she suddenly finds one of them hanging in the Establishment’s library. Her name was Nurse Bellamy.
Florence’s mettle is tested by the dual goals of preserving what little reputation her hospital has and bringing Nurse Bellamy’s killer to justice. Her efforts are met with upturned noses and wayward glances except for her close friend and advocate inside the House of Commons, Sidney Herbert. As Florence digs deeper, however, her attention turns to one of the hospital investors and suddenly, Sidney becomes reluctant to help.
With no one but herself to count on, Florence must now puzzle out what the death of an unknown, nondescript young nurse has to do with conspiracies lurking about at the highest levels of government before she’s silenced too.
For fans of Anne Perry and Laurie R. King comes No Cure for the Dead, the rich and enthralling series debut from Christine Trent.
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Backstory
Longtime readers of mine know that I was my mother’s caretaker for many years before she passed away from a completely mysterious and undiagnosed condition that required her to receive blood transfusions every week for five years. Eventually, her liver could no longer tolerate the transfusions and I lost her in 2015.
Earlier in her life, mom had been a nurse. She was very proud of her nursing license and maintained it long after ill health forced her to retire from her profession.
One day while mom was still alive, I had been casting about for a new series idea. I didn’t want to venture too far from the Victorian time period of my existing LADY OF ASHES series, yet I wanted it to be unique. Then it occurred to me that I could pay homage to my mother by writing about the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale…who lived in the Victorian era.
“Eureka!” my agent said.
Although mom knew about my book idea and was very happy about it, she did not live long enough to see it get sold to Crooked Lane Books. It is bittersweet to me that the book was published but I didn’t have the opportunity to give mom the news. I like to think she would have been very proud to know that this book was published.
