More Work for the Undertaker (Albert Campion Series #13)

Apron Lane is a little bit of Dickensian London that still appears to be flourishing in the brave new post-War world. Urchins abound, and a quasi-feudal order is maintained by the eccentric Palinode family, once the squires of Apron Street and still expecting a certain forelock-tugging deference, even as their fortunes have evaporated. The Apron might be nothing more than an amusing anachronism if its Dickensian aspect did not include a distinctly Bill Sykes-style of omnipresent threat. With the police prototypically baffled, Campion takes up local lodgings in an effort to identify the source of the violence.