Book description
In Victorian London, the age of consent was just thirteen. Unwitting
girls were regularly enticed, tricked and sold into prostitution. If not
marked out for a gentleman in a city brothel, they were legally
trafficked to Brussels, Paris and beyond. All the while, the
Establishment turned a blind eye. That is, until one policeman wrote an
incendiary report. Disgraced for testifying against a violent colleague,
Irish inspector Jeremiah Minahan was transferred to the backwater of
Chelsea as punishment. Here he met Mary Jeffries, a notorious trafficker
and procuress who counted Cabinet members and royalty among her
clientele. Within days of reporting Jeffries, Minahan was
unceremoniously forced out of the Metropolitan Police. So he turned
private detective, setting out to expose the peers and politicians more
interested in shielding their own positions (and peccadilloes) than
London's child prostitutes. The findings Minahan did reveal in 1885
sparked national outrage: riots, arrests, a tabloid war and a
sensational trial . . . other secrets were so fearful he took them to
his grave, where they remained - until now. This is the true tale of a
man caught between a corrupt English Establishment and his own rebel
heart: a very Victorian scandal, but also, a story for our times.
