Folly Ditch

A Dickensian murder mystery. A brutal modern-day gang. Can Helen Oddfellow outwit an old enemy - or will she be his next victim?

When literary researcher Helen Oddfellow finds an old newspaper cutting in an antiquarian bookshop, she uncovers a mystery dating back 200 years. Her quest to find the real woman behind one of Charles Dickens' best-loved characters takes an unexpected turn, when the bookshop owner goes missing.

Helen befriends his distraught teenage daughter as they try to find the missing man. As they discover, the marshes of north Kent are home to a criminal gang more brutal than anything Dickens imagined. Murky money, royal connections and desperate people link the past with the present. But it's the unexpected return of an old enemy that puts Helen herself in mortal peril.

Folly Ditch is the intriguing new mystery featuring literary sleuth and London tour guide Helen Oddfellow.

Long-listed for the Stockholm Writers' Festival 2022 First 5 Pages prize.