1880s, Sussex

Sarah Dalby goes missing from her own garden on the night she is celebrating the defeat of the Oldwell and Mayton Railway Company.

Harry Maines had just proposed and been vehemently rejected, and now he finds himself the last person to have seen his love alive.

The Railway Company stand to gain with Miss Dalby gone, and now it seems that her siblings’ lives may also be in danger…

Inspector Fred Gooch is being threatened with an early retirement, as London’s police force moves with the times. The Sussex case is his last chance to prove that he still has what it takes. With his comic sidekick, George Grossmith, in tow, Gooch tries to get to the bottom of the Dalby disappearance before it becomes a homicide.

Will he find Sarah Dalby’s abductor before it’s too late? What does the Railway Company have to do with the disappearance? And who else will vanish before the case is solved?

‘A Killer Between the Lines’ is a gripping detective story with layer upon layer of mystery.

Stephen Wade has a special interest in writing both crime fiction and true crime. A Killer Between the Lines is his first detective mystery. Gooch’s amateur sidekick, George Grossmith, is based on the real singer and performer of that name who became the first great Gilbert and Sullivan star.