Pictures of Lily

The Strangers Bureau, Book 2

By: James Philip

Narrated by: Madeline Clare

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

Pictures of Lily is the first full-length book of The Strangers Bureau, a series of supernatural mysteries, featuring veteran Sûreté detective Eleanor Gerard and set in the now tranquil but historically blood-soaked landscape of Northern France. Pictures of Lily picks up where Interlopers, book one of the Strangers Bureau Series, ends. It is about the ghosts of the Western Front and the spirits of the ones they left behind.

In Pictures of Lily, the Valenciennes Sûreté are mystified by the discovery of a wounded man wearing the uniform of a British Army officer in the middle of what seems to be a previously unknown, virtually complete Great War trench system. When the wounded soldier claims to be a famous pre-World War I adventurer and explorer Claude Danson, who was reported killed in action on 6th November 1918, the mystery deepens.

Within hours, the mystery becomes a national news story when it emerges that photographs found on the wounded man - his pictures of Lily - could be the twin sisters of Eleanor, her 12-year-old daughter, and France's most famous entertainer of the Great War period Lily Verlaine.

Suddenly, Eleanor Gerard's past career and the reputation of one of the wealthiest families in the Republic are under the fiercest media spotlight and mystery piles upon mystery, coincidence upon coincidence, until dark forces from Eleanor's past and the paranoia of her political masters combine to threaten a bloody denouement which only she can defuse.

When the long dead past come back to haunt the modern world, what becomes of our most deeply rooted beliefs?

©2014 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip (P)2020 James P. Coldham writing as James Philip

You know what's going on. Or do you?

This title can almost seem like a departure from the first title in the series. Characters in the fringes of the first book become the focus of this book, as they struggle to come to terms with the truth we already know from the first book. Again the narration brings the characters of the book to life, and without hyperbole, we understand one character's tough devotion, another's quiet, underlying loyalty, and an attraction between a roguish anachronism, and an independent modern woman. Political maneuvering and power plays fire intrigue as the impossible slowly moves towards unlikely, struggles to become a maybe, and then clearly becomes the reality that these characters face.