{"title":"Bella Wallis Victorian Mysteries","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"bella-wallis-book-brian-thompson-9780701185596","title":"Bella Wallis","description":"Bella Wallis is a glamorous widow with a secret identity: in an office buried deep within the dodgy backstreets of Victorian London, she writes sensationalist novels exposing the scoundrels that litter high society under the pen name Henry Ellis Margam. With dodgy deals, scheming aristocrats and stolen kisses behind closed doors, prize-winning author Brian Thompson conjures up an irresistible quartet filled top to toe with seedy Dickensian glamour.  We start with The Widow's Secret, an effervescent romp to Paris on the trail of the owner of a mysterious cigar case; then The Sailor's Ransom, a tale of pearls and swine, set on the Cornish coast and the high seas; and The Player's Curse, where kidnap, cricket and cross-dressing coincide in a riotous mystery. We end with the previously unpublished The Whole Story, in which Bella is caught up in an anarchist bomb attack at her favourite restaurant, Fracatelli's on the Strand... and only just survives to tell the tale.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49532235972881,"sku":"GOR005169979","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0701185597.jpg?v=1751199430"},{"product_id":"sailor-s-ransom-book-brian-thompson-9780099539490","title":"The Sailor's Ransom","description":"London is alive with gossip about the thrilling new book by sensationalist author Henry Ellis Margam, but only a select group of people know that the real author is beautiful widow, and member of high society, Bella Wallis.  One of her confidantes is the dashing Philip Westland, who comes to Bella now with a problem: his best friend Kennet is smitten with the heiress Mary Skillane but Mary's father, Sir William, has promised her to Robert Judd, a vulgar treasure-seeker. Mary is due to inherit the Skillane pearls, which are currently residing in a Cornsih bank vault, but it seems that the pearls were ill-gotten.  Can Bella and her friends reunite the young lovers and escape the attention of the villainous Judd?","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49543155482897,"sku":"GOR002123688","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099539497.jpg?v=1751355775"},{"product_id":"widow-s-secret-book-brian-thompson-9780099539483","title":"The Widow's Secret","description":"Bella Wallis is a respectable society woman with a secret identity: in an office buried deep within the seedy backstreets of London, she writes sensationalist novels exposing the scoundrels that litter high society under the pen name Henry Ellis Margam.  So when a crested cigar case is found near the body of a murdered prostitute, Bella and her friends are determined to trace the murderer and write a mystery that will avenge the poor girl's untimely death. But the owner of the cigar case is a dangerous - and rich - man who has already destroyed the lives of others who have crossed him. Will Bella see justice done, or will she meet the same fate as so many of her characters...?  The Widow's Secret is the first in the Bella Wallis series of mysteries and takes us from London to Paris, from the highest of society to the lowest of the low. It is an entertaining, effervescent romp and a wonderful introduction to this most charismatic of heroines.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49596914041105,"sku":"GOR002893404","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51844843143441,"sku":"GOR010278467","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099539489.jpg?v=1751388572"},{"product_id":"player-s-curse-book-brian-thompson-9780701184124","title":"The Player's Curse","description":"Bella Wallis's clandestine career as crime novelist Henry Ellis Margam is proving as successful as ever, but, in this latest nail-biting instalment from Brian Thompson, affairs of the heart are proving far trickier. Bella's long and half-acknowledged engagement to Westland is beginning to strain as his own shadowy job, working for the government, continually takes him abroad. And then there's the matter of his sister's incarceration in a French nunnery about which he refuses to say a word.  Bella determines that their future life together can only be resolved by getting to the bottom of Westland's secret. Her journey takes her from the Oval, and a vicious curse laid on W.G. Grace, to the desolate moors of Yorkshire, on the trail of some decidedly dangerous women and a surprisingly chatty hermit. When - at opposite ends of Europe - Philip is kidnapped, and Bella taken hostage, the old team of Urmiston, Quigley and Murch must pull together to save them - with varying degrees of bad-mouthing and knockabout violence, but never without bright wit and oodles of panache.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49601079410961,"sku":"GOR003406241","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49625348374801,"sku":"GOR003116632","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0701184124.jpg?v=1751360528"},{"product_id":"player-s-curse-book-brian-thompson-9780099539476","title":"The Player's Curse","description":"Bella Wallis  respectable society widow with a secret identity as a writer of sensationalist novels  is now happily engaged to the love of her life, Philip Westland.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49632736411921,"sku":"GOR003841039","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49637444944145,"sku":"GOR003254826","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099539470.jpg?v=1751456407"},{"product_id":"captain-s-table-book-brian-thompson-9780701184131","title":"The Captain's Table","description":"London, 1875. At Lady Cornford's famous soiree (sugared almonds and tittle-tattle) everyone is gossiping about Henry Ellis Margam's latest hit, The Widow's Secret. Only a few people know that one of Lady C's guests, the enigmatic Bella Wallis, is in fact the bestselling novelist. Bella punishes evil-doers by exposing them as thinly-disguised characters in the books she writes under her male pseudonym. Armed with her pen, the handsome Miss Wallis surrounds herself with useful men: the dashing Philip Westland, possibly a government spy; Captain Quigley, Bella's fixer, and his shady assistant, Murch, who can always crack a bone or two when someone needs persuading.  Westland comes to Bella with a problem: his best friend Kennett is smitten by the heiress Miss Mary Skillane. But Mary's father, Sir William is 'an old fraud with a beautiful daughter' and she has been promised to Robert Judd, a vulgar treasure seeker. Mary is due to inherit the Skillane pearls, currently residing in a red lacquer box in a Cornish bank vault. But the pearls it seems were ill-gotten, and as Bella and her band uncover more of the strange business, a new Henry Ellis Margam novel looks set to be written, if Bella can first side-step her own affairs of the heart, and evade a brutal threat to her life...","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49637923750161,"sku":"GOR002187223","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49648063185169,"sku":"GOR001890400","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0701184132.jpg?v=1751199425"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/bella-wallis-victorian-mysteries-book-series.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}