Book

The Dead Man’s Dispatch

Book 2 in The Silas Vance Mysteries

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by P M Charles

A dead courier. A vanished dispatch. A conspiracy protected by the very men sworn to stop it. When the Dover mail arrives at Victoria Station, diplomatic courier Edmund Mallory is found dead inside a locked first-class compartment. The sealed dispatch chained to his wrist has disappeared. The chain is unbroken. The doors were secured. No passenger admits entering the compartment. Former naval surgeon Silas Vance is called to examine the body, but the Foreign Office is already pressing the police to declare Mallory’s death natural and bury the missing packet in official silence. Vance is not convinced. The dead man was drugged. The dispatch was removed with a specialised tool. Railway records have been altered, a junior cipher clerk has vanished, and a false government seal bears the mark of the divided crown, the same shadowy organisation Vance encountered in his previous case. With Inspector Elias Davies, barrister Arthur Vance and investigator Clara Mercer at his side, Silas follows the evidence from Whitehall offices to abandoned railway depots and onto the night train racing towards Dover. Someone inside the government has betrayed Mallory. And before dawn, the missing dispatch will either expose the conspiracy or disappear across the Channel forever. The Dead Man’s Dispatch is Book Two in The Silas Vance Mysteries, a fast-paced Victorian mystery series featuring locked-room puzzles, forensic deduction, institutional corruption and a reluctant investigator who trusts evidence more than authority.

Publication date: August 13, 2026