Fran Smith

A quiet lodger, a secret vice, and a fortune-seeker who will stop at nothing. When a neighbour’s lodger is found dead, Vita Carew, a sharp-witted science student, is the first on the scene. The police pronounce it an accident, a fatal fall, but Vita remains unconvinced. Her access to the...

A mysterious victim, a heartless doctor, and an assistant whose loyalty extends to murder. After falling behind during her first year studying science, Vita Carew plans a studious Christmas vacation in Cambridge. However, when an injured man with no memory is discovered and brought to her local...

A professor's dismissal, a boxer's death, and a widow's secrets. Can Vita Carew solve the mystery? In 1903 England, Vita Carew's dreams of studying at Cambridge are shattered by a dismissive professor. But Vita’s intellect proves invaluable after her brother and a visiting American boxer take...

A vicious master, a cruel injustice, and a long-held secret. . . After travelling to the notoriously haunted Crowswood Castle to recover from illness, Cambridge student Vita Carew finds herself at the centre of a ghostly unsolved mystery. As renovations on the ancient castle near completion, old...

A dazzling diva, a glittering society dinner, and a killer with a terrible grudge… In Edwardian England, bookish and bespectacled Vita Carew longs to be left to her scientific studies. But she can't avoid the event of the season, a gala at Pemberton Hall. This glamorous concert and sumptuous...

1903. Bookish, bespectacled Vita Carew longs to be left to her scientific studies. But, to her chagrin, she cannot avoid the event of the season, a gala at Pemberton Hall. This glamorous concert and sumptuous dinner will mark the Pemberton household’s return to society....

Prayer and ingenuity have kept the remote English convent of St Winifreda in the Fen going for centuries, but now the roof leaks, the bell tower is crumbling, and rats have moved in....