The Crimson Rooms
Brit Writers' Awards: Published Writer of the Year Awards, 2010
Evelyn is struggling to come to terms with the loss of her brother in the Great War, and to make her own way in the world – when a woman arrives with her brother’s illegitimate child…
Living at home with her mother, aunt, and grandmother, Evelyn is still haunted by the death of her younger brother James in the First World War. She is also determined to make a career for herself as one of the first female lawyers. So when the doorbell rings late one night and a woman appears, claiming to have mothered James’s child, her world is turned upside down.
Evelyn distrusts Meredith at first, but also finds that this new arrival challenges her work-obsessed lifestyle. So far her legal career has not set the world alight. But then two cases arise that make Evelyn realise perhaps she can make a difference. The first concerns a woman called Leah Marchant whose children have been taken away from her simply because she is poor. The second, Stephen Wheeler, has been charged with murdering his own wife. It is clear that Wheeler is innocent but he won’t talk.
In the meantime, Meredith makes an earth-shattering accusation about James – and Evelyn falls in love with a man engaged to be married. With the Wheeler case coming to a head, and her heart in limbo, Evelyn takes matters into her own hands…
Living at home with her mother, aunt, and grandmother, Evelyn is still haunted by the death of her younger brother James in the First World War. She is also determined to make a career for herself as one of the first female lawyers. So when the doorbell rings late one night and a woman appears, claiming to have mothered James’s child, her world is turned upside down.
Evelyn distrusts Meredith at first, but also finds that this new arrival challenges her work-obsessed lifestyle. So far her legal career has not set the world alight. But then two cases arise that make Evelyn realise perhaps she can make a difference. The first concerns a woman called Leah Marchant whose children have been taken away from her simply because she is poor. The second, Stephen Wheeler, has been charged with murdering his own wife. It is clear that Wheeler is innocent but he won’t talk.
In the meantime, Meredith makes an earth-shattering accusation about James – and Evelyn falls in love with a man engaged to be married. With the Wheeler case coming to a head, and her heart in limbo, Evelyn takes matters into her own hands…
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Reviews
One of those books so intensely alive in the past that it makes the world you actually live in feel flimsy and thin. McMahon combines a thriller writer's grip, pace and punch with the true novelist's depth and warmth of feeling
An absorbing and deftly woven tale, which impressively captures the spirit of the early 1920s... a cracking good read
A real treat and bound to enhance her reputation
A well-plotted, beautifully written tale which makes the point that everyone was a victim of the Great War
One of those books so intensely alive in the past that it makes the world you actually live in feel flimsy and thin. McMahon combines a thriller writer's grip, pace and punch with the true novelist's depth and warmth of feeling.
Four stars: "Haunted by the loss of her brother in the First World War, Evelyn is shocked when someone appears with a boy, apparently a nephew"
Compulsively readable... McMahon skilfully weaves the different strands of the complicated plot into a compelling and moving mystery story
a fantastic read: moving, gripping,absorbing and thrillingly sexy.. a skilful, highly atmospheric drama of guilt, passion and consequences.. the kind of book you never want to end
McMahon vividly recreates the stifled atmosphere of the period, sympathetically portraying the dilemmas faced by women