Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls where she is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant's home in hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships.
It's the nineteenth century. Mary was rescued from the gallows to become part of an all-female detective agency. If you let that sink in for a second, you'll realize that A Spy in the House is not realistic historical fiction - it's wishful thinking, it's social commentary, and no, it's not true to the time period.
Yet I really enjoyed the book. A Spy in the House is like James Bond in petticoats with a side serving of feminism.
