The Mermaid in the Basement: A Lady Trent Mystery Book

A wealthy widow of a nobleman, daughter of a famous scientist, and skeptic who only trusts what can be proven.

Meet Serafina Trent. A woman about to take 19th Century London by storm.

It's London, 1857, and everything is at stake for Serafina Trent. A woman of means...but not the typical Victorian lady who feels her place is to be seen and not heard. When her brother's most recent female dalliance, a beautiful actress, is found murdered, all evidence points to him. Especially since the actress had just rejected him in a most public manner. Now everyone believes Clive is headed for the gallows. Everyone, that is, but Serafina.

Determined to prove her brother's innocence, Serafina finds herself working with unlikely allies--including Dylan Tremayne, a passionate storyteller and actor with a criminal past. This novel will hold fans of mystery and history spellbound until the very last page.

Victorian England comes alive in this intriguing new series from one of Christian fiction's favorite authors.

Publishers Weekly

In this supernatural horror story, prolific novelist Dekker (Skin; THR3E) explores themes of good and evil through a serial killer with mixed results. FBI special agent Daniel Clark s obsession with his job has cost him his marriage, but he s determined to find the serial killer known as Eve. He s murdered 15 young women, each during a new moon, and is about to murder another. Daniel briefly sees the killer, but his memory glitches when he almost dies at the scene. In one of the novel s less believable plot twists, Daniel decides that in order to recall the murderer s face he must go into cardiac arrest several times to attempt to jump-start his memory. Dekker can t resist lecturing his readers, but the pacing is swift and the point of view changes smooth. Moreover, Dekker s use of monthly crime magazine stories as a technique of fleshing out the background of the killer works surprisingly well. But the story falls apart at the end: a multichapter conclusion features a too-long demon-possession scene with a strangely nonprofane demon ( You pathetic pile of excrement ), and some plot elements are not convincingly resolved. Conservative faith-based readers may find this novel too graphic, while general market readers will be perplexed at the awkward attempts to sidestep profanity.