Opening with the murder of Mr Cecil Wallis by his wife, Mrs Harriet Wallis, on the day of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, The Second-Last Woman in England begins in a London recovering from the war. Harriet Wallis, society wife, and Cecil Wallis, shipping magnate, seemed like the perfect post-war power couple – how did it come to murder in the drawing room?

The story moves back a year, revealing the demise of the Wallis family and a cast of characters scarred by a brutal war: the damaged nanny whose entire family was wiped out by a V2 rocket; a mysterious disgraced soldier and the precocious children. The family is in turmoil, with revelations testing their loyalties to each other, to themselves and to the conventions of society.

Set amongst the charming terraces of Kensington, with friendly bobbies on park corners, household staff and Harrods home deliveries, second-time novelist Maggie Joel evokes an era where a generation of British were trying to find their way again. A gorgeous and compelling read, The Second-Last Woman in England is rich in period detail and as suspenseful as any thriller.