Laura Shepherd-Robinson has won plenty of plaudits for her historical novels, and her latest is a real doozy. It’s set in London in 1749 and concerns Hannah Cole who runs a confectioners, The Punchbowl and Pineapple in Piccadilly. She’s struggling to make ends meet, a problem not helped by the recent death of her husband who’d died violently at the hands of some thugs who’d robbed him after he’d spent the night in a tavern. Things appear to take an upward turn however when Hannah learns that her husband had a large sum of money in his account – money that she knew nothing about. Hannah receives another lift when William Devereux, a well-to-do gentleman, enters her shop. He knew her late husband and had helped him with some investment opportunities. But William had another reason for entering The Punchbowl and Pineapple. He longs to try a delicacy he’d once enjoyed in Italy going by the name “iced cream”. He wonders if Hannah could try her hand at making it. Also in the mix is Henry Fielding – yes, the Henry Fielding – the man who won fame with novels such as ‘The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling’. Apparently he was also a magistrate (in actual fact Fielding would go on to found the Bow Street Runners – forerunners of London’s first professional police force). The delights of ‘The Art of a Lie’ unfurl rather deliciously – the narrative point of view changing every so often to give readers a different perspective on what has gone before. And Shepherd-Robinson’s London really does teem with life as she weaves together a plot that is gripping right until the very last. RM

Published by Mantle