The Thornton Mysteries

It’s 1927 in Victoria, Australia. A time after the Great War when women have more options opened to them. At a weekend house party at Thornton Park, Alexandra Thornton decides to break the news to her father that she wants to be an antiques dealer, like her father, grandfather and great-grandfather before her. Guests include Zhang Huo, a Chinese antiques dealer who, with his son, has brought a Ming dragon statue from China for Thomas Thornton, Alexandra’s father. Benedict Archer, manager of Thornton Antiques in Melbourne, is also invited.

Set in 1928 in Victoria, Australia. The Thornton family made its money in the goldfields during the 1850s and the antiques trade. Their principal home is Thornton Park, a lavish mansion close to Melbourne. They also own a home and a goldmine in Daylesford, where their close friends, the Bassetti family, are part of a thriving Swiss-Italian community.

Murder on the High Seas. Thomas Thornton reads the newspaper article. Can the murder of a young German man, fatally stabbed during a voyage out of London to Melbourne, have anything to do with the Thorntons? Alexandra’s curiosity is piqued when a Prussian Count, who travelled on the same ship, shows up at Thornton Antiques in search of a rare amber postage stamp.