Shadow of the Tiger

In the Kirkus Media review of the first book in the Adventures in Second Sight series, Revelations of the Impossible Piddingtons, Kirkus, after declaring that Kyame Piddington was a girl ready for her dragon tattoo, concluded by writing: "One looks forward ... to whatever Wiley plans do with his heroine next." They will find their answer in Shadow of the Tiger, volume two of the series. It is 1896, eight months after the conclusion of Revelations of the Impossible Piddingtons. All of the British intelligence agents in the South of France have been murdered. Even their replacements have been murdered within only a few days of their arrival on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, requests aid from President Grover Cleveland. Can he send some American agents to investigate the circumstances until Salisbury can find replacements from somewhere in the British Empire? But America has no intelligence agents in Europe, so the President must turn to the Anglo-Oriental Marine Insurance Co., the informal troubleshooting group that reports to his Secretary of State, Richard Olney. Only one member of the group, in the opinion of the group leader, Judson Rowland, has the breath of talents and abilities necessary to meet the British need. It is seventeen year old Kyame Piddington. In Shadow of the Tiger (those who have read the first volume of the series know where that name comes from), Kyame must use all of her strange talents, even her use of the ruhmal, the deadly yellow scarf of the Thuggee, to defeat repeated attempts to kill her. Surrounded by the wealth and glamor of Monaco and the Monte Carlo Casino with its titled and flamboyant gamblers, Kyame must rely on a local banker, Victor Bethell (a historical person), and the only British agent left, code-named Muffin, as her only allies in her quest to discover who has killed the British agents and why. And in the midst of her adventures, she encounters a young Frenchman who steals her heart, then disappears, only to reappear in time to save her life, only to disappear again.