The Mystery of the Clasped Hands

Bohemian London, a beautiful stranger and a friendship about to be tested: in this classic mystery, Guy Boothby, the Australian-born master of sensational fiction and creator of the legendary Dr. Nikola, brings art, desire and suspense together in one irresistible tale.
Godfrey Henderson is a young painter with conventional tastes and an eye out for his next great subject. His friend Victor Fensden, an adventurous, cosmopolitan artist with a taste for the unusual, swears he has found it: the perfect model. While the two friends trade tongue-in-cheek views on life and art in a foreign restaurant in Soho, Victor springs his surprise, and the moment Godfrey meets Teresina, a stunning young Italian girl, he is captivated.
But as Teresina becomes the face of Godfrey's new painting, artistic inspiration grows into a tangled emotional drama, and the two friends are drawn into a baffling mystery that will test their loyalty, their nerves and their trust in one another. Who can be trusted, and how far will friendship stretch when beauty, ambition and danger are at stake? Nothing is quite what it seems.
Written with the brisk pace, vivid atmosphere and love of the dramatic that made Boothby one of the most widely read authors of his day, The Mystery of the Clasped Hands blends detective fiction, romance and suspense into a compelling, fast-moving novel. Fans of Arthur Conan Doyle and classic whodunits will feel right at home.