It's 1959 and the associates at Miss Brickett's Investigations and Inquiries prepare to welcome three new recruits to the Agency.
Marion Lane, second year apprentice detective, receives an odd envelope slipped under the door of her room. She finds in it that she has a new partner or "informant" and that "One of the new recruits is not to be trusted".
The timing couldn't be worse. There's a deep fog enveloping London, leading to a crime wave on the streets above (Miss Brickett's is deep underground).
A particularly heinous crime committed in Harrogate has Scotland Yard, the public, and the detectives at Miss Brickett's on high alert. A young man was beaten, branded with an iron in the shape of a rose, and shot in the temple before being tossed in a dumpster.
The public has dubbed the killer "The Florist." Tips and sightings of the Florist abound, as panic sets in.
The three new apprentices are Proctor, Longmore and Quinn. Marion's assigned along with another agent to give them a tour and get settled in. Naturally, she suspects them all, since one of them may be guilty of something.
Not only do the three not quite fit in, they soon have joined in with a long time detective to form the Employee Rights and Protection Society. Rumor of a body tossed into the Thames last year is what the group focuses on first, then insidiously they make accusations of missing gadgetry, irregularities in handling staff problems in the past, and there's a possibility that there are holding cells even deeper underground where people have disappeared.
As Marion and an American detective try to solve the Harrogate murder, the agency seems to be rotting from the inside.
The Agency is Marion's home and family. There's nothing she won't do to try to solve the murder of the Deadly Rose, and to see if it is tied to the arrival of one of the recruits, who may be a murderer.
A wonderful follow up to last year's Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder, Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose takes us deeper into the workings of the 1950's secret detective agency, with it's array of useful spy gadgets, it's dedicated agents, and the labyrinth that is home to some of Britain's finest minds.
Here's what I thought of the first in the series:
https://merlynperilous.wordpress.com/2021/01/12/marion-lane-and-the-midnight-murder-by-t-a-willberg/
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