A tale of modern love and ';genuinely puzzling historical murder mystery' combine in this ';fresh and clever and very funny' novel (The Guardian, UK).Oxford graduate student Kitt Farr has always been most at home in the Old Bodleian Library, but even she needs a break from her research into Victorian Era violence. Taking a dance class seems like a bit of a stretchuntil she meets a cute classmate, mysterious math lecturer Joe Leppard. Then, as Kitt and Joe find a budding romance between them, Kitt finds something sinister in the stacks: an unsolved murder in 1838 with an unsettling connection to the young Charles Dickens.Half a century before Jack the Ripper, a London prostitute known as The Countess was murdered in a way that eerily mirrors the events in Oliver Twist. Now Kitt and Joe are out to uncover how Dickens became tangled up with this horrendous crime.';Gowers's writing is absolutely beautiful.'The Times, UK