It’s 1884. Emma loves her new home in Echuca on the banks of the Murray but she’s finding it difficult to settle into town life. So when she’s called on by her friend and neighbour Henrietta Pickles to investigate the death of her father-in-law, can she put her own concerns aside and lend a hand?

But who wanted Old Mr. Pickles dead? Was it his business partner, that arrogant patron of the Ladies Benevolent Society whom Emma recently confronted?

Or is this about wills and inheritance? The police seem to think so when they arrest Henrietta’s daughter Janet. Her family is distraught. Emma redoubles her efforts, determined to prove her friend’s innocence before her children are left without their mother.

As she rallies family and friends to the cause including Janey, her annoying but indispensable maid-of-all-work, Emma finds herself treading a delicate path to avoid upsetting anyone when delicacy isn’t what is needed.

With Janet about to be sent down south to that grim and forbidding edifice, the Melbourne Jail, can Emma prove the coroner and Sergeant Donovan wrong before her friend ends up on death row?

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