THE LAST BRIDGE: A Victorian Mystery Thriller - Softcover

Autumn 1848...It is the height of the Railway Age in Victorian England, as a great new railway crossing, the High Level Bridge, is being built over the Tyne at Newcastle to finally link England and Scotland by rail. A young civil engineer, Ezra Rush, is the assistant engineer on this great venture, working for the famous engineer Robert Stephenson. Ezra was brought up as a Cambridge gentleman, but since his father’s suicide, has had to make a career for himself in a rougher world among the energy and squalor of the industrial northern town of Newcastle... The bridge is a year behind schedule, but Ezra soon finds his time occupied with many other things than just the technical demands of building the bridge... He gets to know the wealthy local Sillitoe family at their country home at Hedham Grange, and falls in love with the daughter of the house, Charlotte, as well as forming friendships with the head of the household, Sir Walter Sillitoe and his son George.... Yet all is not well in the sinister old house...the servants have reported seeing the ghost of Sir Walter’s late wife Lady Harriet haunting the corridors. Sir Walter decides to try and placate the spirit of his late wife during a séance, and turns to an Irish girl called Grace O’Malley who claims to have the ability to contact the dead. Ezra dreams of a new life in America with Charlotte at his side. But his pursuit of her is frustrated when her family turn against him, and even Charlotte seems to have rejected him and chosen a different suitor. Yet Ezra begins to suspect that there is some dark and disturbing plot at Hedham Grange against Charlotte...