Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror (USA 2025)

From the Publisher:
This searing thriller is perfect for fans of Carol O'Connell and Louise Penny.
Sarah Fortune is bored to death -- but few know, and fewer would guess, how the beautiful and successful lawyer escapes the stultifying tedium of her career. Since the death of her unfaithful husband, she has been moonlighting as a generous mistress, offering intimate company to lonely men.

Sarah is satisfied with her routine. But then she meets Charles Tysall, an important figure at her firm, whose charisma and enormous wealth conceal an implacable will and a misogynist's mad aggression. Soon Sarah finds herself implicated in a murder when a decaying body is found off the coast. Inexorably, Sarah is hurtling toward a confrontation where there will be no escape from the shadows, no turning from the face of lethal obsession...

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror. A Sarah Fortune Mystery. Witness Impulse / HarperCollins, ISBN: 9780062303950 (March, 2025), eBook, 945 KB (ca. 224 p.), $14.99.

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror (UK 2019)

From the Publisher:
Sarah Fortune is bored to death - but few know, and less would guess, how the beautiful and successful redheaded solicitor escapes the stultifying tedium of her career. Since the death of her unfaithful husband, Sarah has found a practical way of transforming the lives of lonely men that also suits her warm and defiant nature.

Kind, witty and obese lawyer Malcolm Cook is the first to benefit from Sarah's generosity - he shrugs off years of weight and loneliness. But then she meets Charles Tysall, an important client of the firm, whose charisma and enormous wealth conceal an implacable will and a misogynist's mad obsession...

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror. Sphere, ISBN: 9780751577518 (February, 2019), 231 p., £7.99.

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror (USA 1992)

From the Publisher:
In her third critically acclaimed crime novel, Edgar Award nominee Frances Fyfield has created a wonderfully complex and fascinating new heroine, Sarah Fortune. A lawyer in a prestigious Mayfair firm, she loathes her dry profession and leads a most unconventional private life. Providing generous and intimate friendship to lonely men -- like fellow outcast Malcolm Cook, a huge, vulnerable prosecutor -- Sarah fills some of the emptiness inside herself.

Keenly happy with her independence, Sarah is repelled by the aggressive court- ship of wealthy Charles Tysall. Little does she suspect the bizarre connection she will soon have with a decayed body found off England's eastern coast. Then, amidst the glitter of a Gray's Inn ball, her red hair is an easy beacon for a ruthless pursuer...

As Malcolm Cook reaches for his newly-found dream, a dedicated detective tracks his quarry; a respected lawyer flees to a series of anonymous pubs; and the threads of rage and passion begin to merge. Inexorably, Sarah Fortune is heading toward a confrontation where there will be no escape from the shadows, no turning from the face of murderous madness...

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror. Pocket Books, ISBN: 0671701622 (February, 1992), 215 p., $4.50.

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror (UK 1991)

From the Publisher:
Sarah Fortune is bored to death -- but few know, and less would guess, how the beautiful and successful redheaded solicitor escapes the stultifying tedium of her career. Since the death of her unfaithful husband, Sarah has found a practical way of transforming the lives of lonely men that also suits her warm and defiant nature.

Kind, witty and obese lawyer Malcolm Cook is the first to benefit from Sarah's generosity -- he shrugs off years of weight and loneliness. But then she meets Charles Tysall, an important client of the firm, whose charisma and enormous wealth conceal an implacable will and a misogynist's mad obsession.

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror. Mandarin, ISBN: 0749310219 (September, 1991), 279 p., £3.99.

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
Frances Fyfield's first crime novel, A Question of Guilt, was greeted with extravagant praise on both sides of the Atlantic, nominated for an Edgar Award, and placed her in "that charmed circle of murderous British females, from Sayers and Christie to Ruth Rendell and P.D. James", in the words of Michael Malone. Her second novel, Not That Kind of Place, carried forward the intelligent, charming characters of Crown Prosecutor Helen West and Detective Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey.

In SHADOWS ON THE MIRROR, Fyfield creates a new heroine, Sarah Fortune, as wonderfully complex and fascinating as Helen West, but with a very different attitude toward life. A lawyer in a prestigious Mayfair firm, she loathes the dryand dreadful rooms of law and takes no pride in the Elizabethan splendor of the Inns of Court. Since the death of her unfaithful husband two years before, Sarah has been leading a life well removed from the conventional one of appearances. She gives vent to her warm and generous nature by supplying her own brand of friendship to lonely men -- men like the huge and sympathetic Malcolm Cook, a fellow outsider whom she nudges to new life, thereby filling some of the emptiness inside herself.

Sarah's vulnerable men stand in stark contrast to the handsome, rich and powerful Charles Tysall, whose aggressive courtship disturbs and repels her. But he favorably impresses Sarah's secretary, who takes it upon herself to press his cause. What they do not realize is that he is an intolerable burden to Ernest Matthewson, the head of Sarah's firm and Malcolm Cook's stepfather, who knows secrets no man should be required to keep -- and that he is a key frustration to two dogged police- men who sense but cannot prove that Tysall has committed a crime.

Slipping ever further Outside the realm of ordinary work and acquaintanceships, Sarah is keenly happy with her uninhibited life, of which there is no one to disapprove. Little does she suspect the bizarre connection she will soon have with a woman's decayed body found off England's eastern coast. Then, amidst the glitter of a Gray's Inn ball, attended by the richest and fairest of London's ‚legal society, she realizes that her red hair is an easy beacon for a ruthless pursuer...

As Malcolm Cook reaches for his newly found dream, a dedicated detective with a personal vend- etta tracks his quarry; a respected lawyer flees to a series of anonymous pubs and goes on a bender; and the threads of rage and passion begin to merge. Inexorably, unwittingly, Sarah Fortune is heading toward a confrontation where there will be no escape from the half-seen shadows, no turning from the face of murderous madness...

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror. Pocket Books, ISBN: 0671701614 (February, 1991), 215 p., $17.95.

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror (UK 1990)

From the Publisher:
Sarah Fortune is bored to death -- but few know, and less would guess, how the beautiful and successful redheaded solicitor escapes the stultifying tedium of her career. Since the death of her unfaithful husband, Sarah has found a practical way of transforming the lives of lonely men that also suits her warm and defiant nature.

Kind, witty and obese lawyer Malcolm Cook is the first to benefit from Sarah's generosity -- he shrugs off years of weight and loneliness. But then she meets Charles Tysall, an important client of the firm, whose charisma and enormous wealth conceal an implacable will and a misogynist's mad obsession.

Frances Fyfield: Shadows on the Mirror. Mandarin, ISBN: 0749302674 (October, 1990), 279 p., £3.99.