Cold Dark Deep

When a child’s body is discovered in tumultuous eighteenth-century London, a struggling writer dares to defy her time and become an unlikely force for social justice in a new historical mystery by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Julia Keller.

Brilliant—but broke. Ahead of her time—but behind on her rent.

Such is the plight of Sarah Fielding in 1750 London, shortly before the opening of Westminster Bridge. Sister of the famous author Henry Fielding, Sarah is a writer as well—but with barely a smidgen of Henry’s commercial success. When the body of a young girl turns up on the shiny new bridge, Sarah finds her destiny as a self-described Avenger of Misfortune—the word “detective” was yet to be coined—in the churning, volatile, but alluring world of Georgian London.

As the great city’s population surges, inequality sharpens its claws. Wealth protects the powerful, while a burgeoning underclass is left voiceless and vulnerable. Joining forces with the Bow Street Runners, the nation’s first professional police force, Sarah plunges headlong into a case that will expose this stark divide between rich and poor—and dares to expose an evil secret that lurks within the glamorous, perilous city.

Edifying and entertaining . . . Keller skillfully evokes the squalor of the Georgian era and writes convincingly of Sarah’s plight as a woman hoping to make a living from her art. . . . Readers will be rapt.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Drops Sarah and readers into a dangerous, stinking, chaotic eighteenth-century London and a fast moving mystery with a whip-smart and kind protagonist striding toward justice. For all who love historical fiction underpinned by thorough research and for fans of Tracey Enerson Wood’s The Engineer’s Wife.”
— firstCLUE

Keller’s Cold Dark Deep is set in a time unfamiliar to many and yet her vocabulary and character development bring a forgotten time into being in an appealing manner. Her use of prose breathes life to a place and period we come to love in a plot filled with human frailty. A thrilling read!”
— Charles Todd, author of the Ian Rutledge and the Bess Crawford Mysteries

A masterpiece. Keller weaves facts with fantasy to reveal the feel and truths of crucial times in our history. Cold Dark Deep creates intriguing women heroes who claim their place in crime fiction in a manner akin to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes & Doctor Watson. What an amazing, wonderful mystery!”
— James Grady, creator of Condor and Shadows on Sidewalks

Keller’s sleuths are easy to like and the murder story is moving.”
— New York Times on The Cold Way Home

Keller’s lush prose and complex characters will draw readers in.”
— New York Journal of Books on The Cold Way Home

Julia Keller earned a Ph.D. in English Literature at Ohio State University and has taught at Princeton University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Chicago. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Julia was chief literary critic and staff writer at the Chicago Tribune, where she won the paper’s first Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. She is the author of an eight-volume mystery series; a science fiction trilogy for young adults; a biography of Richard Gatling, inventor of the Gatling gun; and Quitting, an argument for the limits of perseverance. Julia has contributed many on-air essays to The NewsHour on PBS and NPR’s All Things Considered and delivered a TEDx talk.