Lord Francis Powerscourt is a fictional Victorian-Edwardian detective who has appeared in fifteen novels by the author David Dickinson.
1897 - Investigation of a headless corpse found floating in the Thames and the threat to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
Investigation into the death of the Earl of Candlesby found dead on his horse with a corner of his scarlet coat visible in the morning mist.
The British Museum in Bloomsbury is home to one of the Caryatids, a statue of a maiden that acted as one of the six columns in a temple which stood on the Acropolis in ancient Athens.
Powerscourt agrees to handle the case discreetly - but then comes the first death: an employee of the British Museum is pushed under a rush hour train before he and the police can question him.
At the end of their famed performance of Thamar at the Royal Opera House, the Georgian queen stabs her prince to death and throws him into the river.
But life mirrors art when the prince is found truly dead, stabbed through the heart in the orchestra pit below stage.
Lord Francis Powerscourt is visited at home in London by the Bishop of Lynchester who wants his advice about the suspect for the death of an aged parishioner.
The death of the parishioner has left available a property in the cathedral close which traditionally the church rents out to a suitable tenant.
Four worthy candidates are nominated...and then one of them, the retail king of the south of England, is found dead in the house, poisoned by strychnine.
A night of dancing that ends with the mysterious disappearance of a stable-boy - and Lord Francis Powerscourt is summoned to investigate.
Spring 1914, and Jack Harper, current owner of Melrose Hall, has thrown a party for his eldest, Andrew, who is turning twenty-one.
More than just a stable-boy, Richard acts as the legs of the paralyzed Jack Harper, pushing him around the estate in his wheelchair and sharing with him an affinity with the family's stable of thoroughbreds.