The battle for women’s suffrage had been joined long before Emmeline Pankhurst raised its level to militancy. An excellent history of the whole campaign and the ideas behind it is The Ascent of Woman by Melanie Phillips, published by Little, Brown in 2003. Concerning poison, two books I found most helpful were Poison and Poisoning by Celia Kellett, published by Accent Press Ltd in 2009, and The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum, published by Penguin Books in 2011. Helena Rubinstein’s autobiography, My Life for Beauty, published by The Bodley Head, in 1965, inspired my creation of Maison Rose. And Larry Lamb’s story for the BBC’s series Who Do You Think You Are produced the setting for the book’s first chapter.
I would like to thank Michael Thomas for reading and advising on the ms, my agent Jane Conway Gordon for her expert help and support, and the Mystery Press editors Matilda Richards and Emily Locke for their care and attention in the publication of this book. Finally many thanks to Shelley Bovey and Georgie Newbery, who have critiqued every stage of the writing of this book and without whom it would not have reached THE END. And to Peter Lovesey for his wonderful tag line. Any resemblance of the characters to actual persons, living or dead, can only be by coincidence, and all mistakes are mine.