Stephen Cox
Independent, 12 September 2026
Available as: PB, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN: 9781068164439.
Independent, 12 September 2026
Available as: PB, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN: 9781068164439.
I'm grateful to the author for sending me a copy of The Crooked Medium's Guide to Terror to consider for review.
This is the second volume of Cox's series featuring Mrs Ashton, the crooked medium of the title (though she's now more honest than she used to be, I think "crooked" is still probably reasonable) and her companion and lover Mrs Bradshaw ("Braddie"). The two women make a precarious living in the Spiritualism racket that flourished in the 19th and early 20th century, with a sideline in burglary (though this may now be in their pasts). In Terror, their living is slightly better, than in The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder, since Ashton has found a patron (an Earl no less) who supports their work (though this outrages Braddie's Socialist principles). So the two women are not quite so much up against it here, nor so close to being enmeshed in scandal, or even arrested, as before, though they are still not secure, or respectable. Their love must still, of course, remain hidden with Braddie treated at times as a servant to allow them to fit into the rigid patterns that society allows. The price, in stress and fear, that this inflicts is a running theme in the story, Braddie suffering most (Ashton herself is often maddeningly uncomprehending).
The Earl's patronage aside, Ashton's new attitude of honesty - and to a degree the two womens' prosperity - may also reflect that, due to the events of The Crooked Medium's Guide to Murder, she has acquired more of a genuine insight into the spiritual realms, along with a spirit guide who readers of that book will recognise. (That detail apart though, the books could be read entirely as standalones - though you'd be missing a treat if you didn't read the first book too). But she still doesn't really understand the rules, and in this adventure Braddie and Mrs Ashton will encounter others who have both more understanding and more psychic power than she does.
It all starts when Mrs Ashton is retained to investigate the death of a carpenter, David Gittens, who leaves behind a heartbroken (and pregnant) lover. There turns out to be a disturbing psychic aspect to this death, which is not the only supernatural cause for concern in London. A seance held in fashionable society, and involving the new darling of Spiritualist circles, Madam Moray (a woman for whom Ashton undoubtedly feels some mild jealousy) goes catastrophically wrong as well, and Mrs Ashton, the former crooked medium, is well placed to investigate whether it was all fakery, or whether something rather nasty may be stirring.
The story spirals from here into an agreeable and action-filled blend of opportunism, dark forces and endangered reputations. The family of Lord Hanbury, father of Tommie, best friend to Ashton's protégé Maisie, is enmeshed in the affair and indeed threatened. Maisie herself fell in with Tommie - a young woman of independent mind - at the posh academy to which she was admitted as part of the fallout of the first book, and she's making use of the opportunity for education. Ashton though misses her lieutenant who was always able to marshal assistance for investigations from the London street kids. Maisie is, however, in exactly the right place to provide an inside track to goings on in the Hanbury household.
And she'll need that, because mysteries abound in this complex, fast-paced story. Both spiritual and mundane evil are afoot. At the heart of it all is a very human quest for retribution which has drawn something much darker to its aid - a darkness that may have its own allegiances and motives. Mrs Ashton's instinct is to look for the good everywhere, and to trust to redemption and forgiveness. Madam Moray, by the end of the story, is less sure and issues a warning.
With hints of other unseen hands in play, and the potential spiritual defence of the country itself at stake, I can see all sorts of ways this dilemma may play out. Cox has rather brilliantly identified a psychic vulnerability for the empire on which the sun never sets - the decidedly iffy lives and pasts of its foremost statesmen, and it seems as though, despite Braddie's disdain for empire and power, the two investigators are going to be drawn back to that arena.
I loved this book. Not only do we get a sort of Buchanesque thriller (washed of the more dubious aspects of the 1870s - 1930s "shocker") but in Mrs Ashton and Mrs Bradshaw we see the dilemmas of two women with a love that can't be declared openly. We see not only their happiness but the strain they're under, their jealousies, and fears of abandonment, of separation.
In many ways this is an outsider story - it may feature lords and earls and the top brass of Scotland Yard, but Ashton's world is one of ex-boxers, of thieves, of a Chinese magnate who may have power and wealth but is stranded between "respectable" society and his own nation, of the whole disreputable Spiritualist movement, riddled with frauds and existing on the whim of fashionable society. It's a cause for concern that an upcoming production at the Savoy Opera is to lampoon both Ashton and Moray - acceptability to polite society can be hard-won and easily lost. That outsiderness adds a distinct frisson to the action, with the protagonists risking much as they go about their business.
Recommended, and I'm keen to see what comes next in this series!
For more information about The Crooked Medium's Guide to Terror, see the author's website here - and if you want a copy (you should!) you can also find links there to buy the book, both from online retailers and some bookshops.
