The Painted Lie: A Bee Alder Mystery

By Emma Sparrow

London, 1923. A city of swirling fog, restless river tides, and secrets tucked into every narrow street.

In the heart of Limehouse, seventeen-year-old Beatrice "Bee" Alder keeps one foot in the world of dockside gossip and the other in the polished parlours of people far above her station. She has a quick mind, a quicker tongue, and a sketchbook full of things most adults overlook. Bee is no stranger to trouble-but even she isn't prepared for the tangle of lies waiting in an abandoned Bloomsbury art studio.

When the feared and famously unpleasant art critic Edmund Fairfax is found strangled beside a half-finished easel, Bee's curiosity ignites like a struck match. The official inspector on the case-gruff, rule-bound Arthur Goddard-would rather she kept out of his way. But London's fog hides more than footprints, and Bee has a knack for nosing out truths that don't fancy being found.

As Bee pieces together the critic's last movements, she stumbles into a world of glamour and rot: Mayfair galleries with locked ledgers, painters carrying old wounds, forged masterpieces traded for fortunes, and a self-portrait that seems to hold its breath under the lamplight-its buried brushstrokes whispering confessions from beneath the paint.

A forged telegram.
A silk scarf with a smear of red.
A crushed Turkish cigarette.
A witness who remembers a blue cloche hat.
And a man who may not be the ghost everyone believes him to be.

Every clue Bee uncovers draws her further into a conspiracy of art, ambition, and betrayal. Loyalties shift. Alibis crumble. Motives multiply. And someone in London-someone clever, someone desperate-wants her investigation silenced before she exposes the truth they killed to protect.

From the fog-soaked alleys of Limehouse to the gilded salons of Mayfair, Bee races to untangle a mystery layered as thickly as an old master's canvas. But as the noose tightens around the guilty, danger creeps closer to Bee herself.

Can a determined girl with a sketchbook, a sharp tongue, and no fear of authority unmask a murderer hiding in plain sight?

A richly atmospheric 1920s detective puzzle, The Painted Lie invites the reader to gather clues, make notes, and solve the case alongside Bee Alder-before the final reveal uncovers the truth beneath the paint.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GC2LGVR5
• ISBN13: 9798279425068
• Release Date: December 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 76 Pages
• Weight: 0.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.0" x 8.0"