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A portrait artist whose brushstrokes reveal murder, a skeptical inspector who can't explain what she knows, and a killer using mirrors as instruments of death — a gothic paranormal mystery set in Victorian London's most shadowed corners, where the line between vision and madness is razor thin.
When I started The Shadow in the Mirror, the first book in my Harrow & Marrow Mysteries, I thought I knew what a Victorian gothic needed: fog, gaslight, a brooding inspector, and a mirror or two. I didn’t expect the research to take me through poison, plumbing, and the dangerous habits of fashionable ladies. Every one of those discoveries ended up in the plot.
The book is set in London in 1887. Inspector Lucien Harrow and portrait artist Seraphine Marrow, who has a gift she doesn’t yet understand, investigate a string of deaths among young women in the city’s most polished social circles. The deaths look unrelated, but they aren’t.
The mirror was a poisoned object
I wanted mirrors at the heart of the story, so I looked into how a Victorian mirror was actually made. For centuries, glass was silvered with a tin-and-mercury amalgam. The result was beautiful, but the workers who made them were slowly poisoned by mercury. Silver nitrate methods arrived in the nineteenth century and gradually changed the trade, so for a while both processes, and both kinds of danger, overlapped.
I had assumed the mirrors were the spooky part of my story. It turns out they were a toxic part of the trade too, an everyday object in every fashionable drawing room with a hidden dark side.
Beauty was a dangerous business
The detail that stopped me cold was how far Victorian women went to look pale. A fashionable complexion was ghostly white, and the cosmetics of the day delivered it with ingredients that would horrify us now. Lead-based face powders were common, and arsenic was sold as a complexion aid, even in the form of “wafers” women ate to clear and whiten their skin. Some used belladonna to widen their eyes. Women were deliberately dosing themselves in pursuit of an ideal, and the damage built up quietly.
For a mystery writer, that’s irresistible. When young women in high society start falling ill and dying, how do you tell poison from fashion? A pale, wan, fragile look was the goal, so early warning signs could be mistaken for beauty. That gave my characters a built-in problem to solve.
A painter’s studio is basically a chemistry lab
Seraphine’s studio had to be accurate, and it was just as hazardous. Pigments came from lead, mercury, and arsenic compounds, so even the lovely whites and greens had a body count attached. This research shaped how she sees the world. A painter notices tiny shifts in color, skin tone, and reflection, which is exactly the attention a mystery needs. She can look at a pale complexion and wonder what put it there.
The river that London buried
My favorite discovery came from the ground itself. The Fleet was once a real river, and it still runs beneath London. Over the centuries it was covered over and absorbed into the city’s sewers, so it’s still down there, hidden under the streets.
For a mystery writer, a lost river is the perfect hiding place. It’s dark, fast-moving, and out of sight, with culverts, tunnels, and sluice gates that only a few people understand. If you needed to bury a body, or hide a ledger, a weapon, or any evidence that could ruin a family, you couldn’t ask for a better spot. The Fleet had long been a dumping ground, so no one would question what drifted through it. Getting the water logic right turned into a puzzle of its own, and I’m proud of how it plays out in the climax, though I promise no spoilers.
Every detective needs a few good sidekicks
Research gives a story its bones, but the ensemble gives it a heartbeat. I come from cozy mysteries, where the recurring cast is half the fun, so I wasn’t about to write a gothic without one.
Seraphine has Rook, the dog who appears on the cover. He’s loyal, observant, and has opinions about suspicious characters. Then there’s her housekeeper, Mrs. Clove, who keeps Seraphine’s household running and has no patience for nonsense, whether it comes from a ghost or a duke. Inspector Harrow has Constable Oakes, his steady right hand, who brings warmth and humor to the cases and balances his brooding boss.
They are the heart of the series, and early readers have told me they feel like family. I think that’s the cozy writer in me. Even in the fog, I want my characters to have people who have their backs.
That may be the most surprising thing I learned. Research isn’t a chore you finish before the story starts. It keeps handing you plot, and the more oddly specific the fact, the better it works. Add a loyal dog and a couple of devoted friends, and you have a world worth coming back to.
That may be the most surprising thing I learned. Research isn’t a chore you finish before the story starts. It keeps handing you plot, and the more oddly specific the fact, the better it works. Add a loyal dog and a couple of devoted friends, and you have a world worth coming back to.
Join the giveaway
If you’d like to step into 1887 London, I’m giving away 10 paperback copies of The Shadow in the Mirror on Goodreads, running from October 19 to November 15, 2026.
Thank you so much to Tony for having me on The Writing Desk!
Kari Lee Townsend
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You can find her at www.karileetownsend.com and on Instagram, Twitter/X @karileetownsend and Bluesky @karileetownsend.bsky.social
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