The Dark Clue

The Dark Clue by James Wilson takes us into Victorian England in all its staggering extremes; of poverty and wealth, of slums and stately homes, of public morality and private vice in an unforgettable tale of suspense.

Walter Hartwright is married, prosperous and a little bored. When he is approached to write a life of the painter Turner he accepts, unaware that his subject lived a life more dark than light. Researching the painter's life, he is soon affected with its possibilities of violence and even murder that he no longer trusts his own sanity and character.

'This is a book begun, but not finished. I could not finish it. Many times I have come close to destroying it, thinking I should have no rest while it remained to reproach me. I could not bring myself to do it. I have therefore given instructions that it should be sealed in a box, which is to remain unopened until I, my wife Laura, our sister Marion Halcombe, and all our children are dead.'

So begins James Wilson's brilliant imaginative recreation of the Victorian sensation novel as the characters from Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White - Walter Hartright and Marion Halcombe - are involved in another dramatic and dangerous conspiracy. Walter is commissioned to write a biography of the greatest of English painters, JMW Turner, whose life was shrouded in mystery. His researches take him to the dark secret at the centre of Turner's work and involve him and Marion in confronting crimes and human degradation that threaten their sanity and their lives.

The Dark Clue takes us into Victorian England in all its staggering extremes; of poverty and wealth, of slums and stately homes, of public morality and private vice in an unforgettable tale of suspense.