Mr Bazalgette's Agent

When Miriam Lea falls on hard times an advertisement calling for private agents catches her eye and within weeks she finds herself in Mr Bazalgette's employ as a private detective travelling on a train to Hamburg in pursuit of an audacious fraudster. What follows is a journey through some of the great cities of Europe - and eventually to South Africa - as Miss Lea attempts to find her man. Miriam Lea is only the third ever British professional female detective to appear in a work of crime fiction. Originally published in 1888 Mr Bazalgette's Agent presents a determined and resourceful heroine in the figure of Miss Lea who grapples with some very modern dilemmas of female virtue and vice.