Miss Burnham and the Loose Thread

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INTRODUCING ROSE BURNHAM: DESIGNER, DRESSMAKER . . . DETECTIVE?

South-east London, 1925.

Talented, ambitious designer-dressmaker Rose Burnham knows well both the strains of her profession and the secrets it can yield. Newly established in her own business, she and her sisters are privy to the hushed conversations that unspool behind the fitting room’s closed doors.

So when a major client finds herself the victim of a deception, it is Rose she tells. Driven by the shortage of men following the Great War, Miss Holmes had engaged the services of a matrimonial agency, only to be cheated out of her inheritance by a fake suitor.

Rose is determined to bring the swindler to justice. To begin with, playing the detective is a grand adventure, but as pressures mount and an old friend receives a troubling string of poison-pen letters, Rose discovers there is more to investigating – and these investigations – than she’d bargained for.

Rose had the sense of a thread being pulled. One tug and everything could unravel . . .


'A joy of a read. A superbly researched story of post-WW1 female friendship chock-a-block with characters you’ll cheer on to the very last page, I read it cover to cover in a day'
--AJ Pearce, Sunday Times bestselling author of Dear Mrs Bird

‘As well as being an exquisite mystery, Miss Burnham and the Loose Thread is an ode to the pioneering women who embraced new opportunities in the aftermath of The Great War. I loved it!’
--Jessica Bull, author of Miss Austen Investigates

‘A hat box of delights, full of period detail and thoroughly enjoyable.’
--Claire Wilcox, author of Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes and Professor in Fashion Curation at the London College of Fashion

© Lynn Knight 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025