Inspector Webb

3 total works

The Last Pleasure Garden

by Lee Jackson

Published 6 April 2006

A sinister figure stalks the gas-lit groves of Cremorne Gardens, the last pleasure - ground on the banks of the Thames. His weapon, a sharp pair of scissors. His victims, young women in the first bloom of youth. His crime - merely to remove a lock of their hair. Inspector Decimus Webb of Scotland Yard suspects a harmless lunatic is at large. But, when morbid obsession turns to murder, even Webb's loyal sergeant begins to doubt his judgement. As the press and his superiors clamour for answers, Webb's investigations lead him to Rose Perfitt, aspiring debutante and daughter of a respectable stock-broker. Will she fall prey to 'The Cutter' or does a worse fate beckon? One thing is certain - only Decimus Webb can save her. Lee Jackson's third Inspector Webb novel takes the reader into the forgotten world of the Victorian pleasure-garden, in a gripping mystery of garish gas-light and dark secrets.

The Welfare Of The Dead

by Lee Jackson

Published 7 April 2005

'Her arms were bare and milky-white, her hands dainty and graceful; her smile as sweet as any I have ever seen. An awful shame...'

In the disreputable dance-halls and 'houses of accommodation' of 1870s London a boastful killer selects his prey.Are these random acts of malevolence or is there a connection between the terrible murders, a mysterious theft at the Abney Park Cemetery and a long-forgotten crime?Inspector Decimus Webb, newly promoted to the Detective Branch at Scotland Yard, must investigate, and quickly, to prevent another tragedy...

Taking readers through the dark alleys and gaslit parlours of nineteenth-century London, Lee Jackson's second Inspector Webb novel is a suspense-filled gothic mystery with the Victorian celebration of death at its morbid heart.

A Metropolitan Murder

by Lee Jackson

Published 4 March 2004

The last train of the night pulls into the gas-lit platform of Baker Street underground station. A young woman is found strangled, her body abandoned in a second-class carriage. The brutal 'Railway Murder' brings Inspector Decimus Webb to the newly-formed Metropolitan Line on a bleak winter's night. His investigation leads him through the slums of Victorian London to the Holborn Refuge, a home for 'fallen women', and to Clara White, a respectable servant. But Clara has her own tragic and shameful history. As her past is revealed, Inspector Webb must decide whether she is merely a victim of circumstance, or a prime suspect. Only then can he unearth a dark secret, hidden in the depths of underground London. Lee Jackson's second novel brilliantly recreates the sights, sounds and smells of Victorian London, taking readers on a suspense-filled journey through its criminal underworld.