The Skeleton in the Rose Bed

by Alys Clare Book 5 in the World’s End Bureau Mysteries series.

First published 2025

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4.2(373)

London, autumn 1882. Three elderly Fetterplace siblings visit the World’s End Investigation Bureau after human bones are uncovered in the rose bed of their secluded house behind Tower Hill. They believe they know who the dead person may be, yet their reluctance to let Lily Raynor and Felix Wilbraham inspect the garden suggests that the family is concealing more than an old burial.

The case develops as violence begins to close around the investigators themselves, linking the hidden skeleton to a present threat on London’s streets. Clare uses the enclosed Fetterplace household, the dense neighbourhood around Tower Hill and the methods of private enquiry to build a late Victorian mystery about long-kept secrets resurfacing in physical form.