Two short stories from the pen of Sarah Rayne, who has been referred to as the ‘Dark Lady of Crime Fiction’, and whose work has been described as ‘eruditely eerie.’
In these two stories, however, she writes in a more light-hearted vein, creating a modern-day Raffles/Lovejoy character. As the youngest of a family of gentlemanly burglars, forgers, and art fraudsters, he has long since yearned to commit a crime so dazzling it will create international headlines and echo down the years.
In ‘The Forgotten Manuscript’ he believes his ambition could be within his grasp, following a remarkable find in the old library of an Elizabethan manor house…
‘The Unknown Crime’ holds out the same promise, when he discovers his great-grandfather committed an astonishing theft almost a hundred years earlier.