The Secret Passage (1905) is a mystery novel by Fergus Hume. Although not as successful as The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), an immediate bestseller for Hume, The Secret Passage is a gripping novel with an atmospheric intensity and tightly wound mystery worthy of the best of Victorian fiction. From an author whose work inspired Arthur Conan Doyle, The Secret Passage is a story of murder with a haunting, original conclusion.
Susan Grant, a young woman seeking employment, arrives at Rose Cottage, the home of Miss Loach. After a brief but intense interview, Susan begins working as a parlor maid, quickly discovering the high standard to which Miss Loach holds her employees. Across town, her sister Mrs. Octagon, a writer with a penchant for self-promotion, lives with her husband, Peter, and daughter, Juliet. Speaking with Juliet following afternoon tea one day, Mrs. Octagon raises the topic of her sister, whose quiet life she deeply disapproves of. At this moment, as though by a stroke of fate, her husband bursts in with the news of Miss Loach’s murder. As Jennings, a local detective, begins his investigation, he discovers a broad cast of friends, employees, and acquaintances, all of whom harbor some motive—but who could have been driven to murder? Was it Susan, whose history working for a mysterious Spaniard seems questionable at best? Was it Mrs. Octagon, from whom the topic of her sister had always drawn the bitterest of words? As The Secret Passage winds toward its cunning conclusion, one thing becomes clear—the line between malice and murder remains murky, even under the brightest of lights.
This edition of Fergus Hume’s The Secret Passage is a classic of English mystery and detective fiction reimagined for modern readers.
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Circa l’autore
Fergus Hume (1859-1932) was an English novelist. Born in Worcestershire, Hume was the son of a civil servant of Scottish descent. At the age of three, he moved with his family to Dunedin, New Zealand, where he attended Otago Boy’s High School. In 1885, after graduating from the University of Otago with a degree in law, Hume was admitted to the New Zealand bar. He moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he worked as a clerk and embarked on his career as a writer with a series of plays. After struggling in vain to find success as a playwright, Hume turned to novels with The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), a story of mystery and urban poverty that eventually became one of the most successful works of fiction of the Victorian era. Hume, who returned to England in 1888, would go on to publish over 100 novels and stories, earning a reputation as a leading writer of popular fiction and inspiring such figures as Arthur Conan Doyle, whose early detective novels were modeled after Hume’s. Despite the resounding success of his debut work of fiction, Hume died in relative obscurity at a modest cottage in Thundersley.
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