Dorothea Roberts is beginning her first year of undergraduate study at the Victoria University of Manchester in 1934, when a chance encounter with a stranger on a train turns deadly.

Matilda Abbott, an undercover MI5 agent with a secret, fearful that she is being followed by an assassin, hands Dorothea a letter to give to an eminent professor at the university. Then Matilda is shot at by an unknown assailant. She is injured but manages to escape from the train.

After giving her statement to the police Dorothea arrives at her halls of residence, Grangebrook Hall, to begin the start of term. There has recently been a hit and run accident killing the Secretary of the Women’s Student Union Committee, and Matilda, also a member of the WSUC, has disappeared. Everything points towards there being a serial killer on the loose on campus.

Just what exactly is going on and who is responsible?

 

Dark Edge Press Paperback

 

Lizzie Bentham started writing during the 2020 lockdown with the aim of creating some imaginary friends to talk to, who could get out and about a bit more than she could.

With Murder in Her First Degree, the first book in the Red Brick Mystery series, she combines her love of all things academic with another of her passions – murder mystery novels from the golden age of crime writing.

Lizzie currently lives in the West Midlands with her husband and two small children. When she is not writing, watching children’s television or visiting parks, Lizzie enjoy walks in the countryside, reading, flower-arranging and crocheting.

Find out more about the Red Brick Mystery series at http://www.lizziebentham.com and follow @lizziebentham on Twitter or on Facebook.