‘A Kiss From The Devil’ by Georgina Clarke

Published by Verve Books,
11 December 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-85730-930-3 (PB)

Even in mid-18^th century London, you don’t really expect a prostitute to be a sleuth – which is possibly why Lizzie Hardwicke is good at it. She’s also good at her day (or night) job, which allows her access to high-class gambling dens and upmarket residences. It’s in one of those residences that she encounters her uncle Sir Francis Vessey, who is the man responsible for her current way of life; for Lizzie is gently born and lived in relative luxury until she was corrupted by Sir Francis and consequently turned out of the house by her father.

She comes across both Sir Francis and her brother George Vessey at a riotous party thrown by the Devil’s Brotherhood, a group of the most notorious so-called gentlemen in London – and on the way home she meets a street girl with news of a murder. Another girl has been raped, strangled and branded with a letter V.

And next day George Vessey is brought before the magistrate accused of the girl’s murder.

Lizzie is shrewd and perceptive, and the magistrate makes good use of her. She has already helped to put away more than one murderer, but she can’t believe her brother is another. By the time her greatest ally, assistant magistrate William Davenport, returns from attending to family business, the branded bodies have mounted up. Lizzie’s dealings with the Devil’s Brotherhood and quest to prove George’s innocence leads her into dark corners and ultimately into life-threatening danger.

Lizzie herself is a multi-layered character, and her friends and fellow prostitutes are a mixed bunch: capable Polly, reluctant Angel, self-important Betsy, Meg the virtuous housemaid, Ma Farley the brothel keeper who has become a pitiable drunkard. The men are a mixed bunch too. Noblemen without morals and pompous politicians litter the pages. Gentlemanly Davenport isn’t above some well-placed violence, while Ma’s husband John Farley seems to enjoy it for its own sake. But there are hearts of gold in unexpected places.

Raffish gambling dens, taverns both respectable and less so, the Magdalen House which Meg chooses over the brothel: all this and more is woven together into a colourful tapestry full of vitality. Georgina Clarke’s background as a historian is very evident; Lizzie Hardwicke’s adventures are classed as crime fiction, but they work equally well as richly detailed historical novels. This one is as much of a page-turner as the previous three, and Lizzie is the kind of character that makes the reader root for her. She’s the most interesting undercover sleuth I’ve had the pleasure to meet in a long time.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Georgina Clarke was born in Wolverhampton, has degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and London. She has always been passionate about stories and history. The Lizzie Hardwicke novels give her the opportunity to bring to life her love of the eighteenth century and her determination that a strong, intelligent and unconventional woman should get to solve the crimes - rather than be cast in the role of the sidekick. Georgina now lives in Worcester with her husband. 

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.