'In Murder in Punch Lane, Jane Sullivan creates a murder mystery plot surrounding the death in 1868 of rising theatre star Marie St Denis.
'In Sullivan’s tale, fictional actress and amateur sleuth Lola Sanchez and her sidekick, journalist and magazine editor Magnus Scott, investigate possible suspects in St Denis’s death.
'Sullivan’s suspects include American-born Shakespearian actor Walter Montgomery, judge and philanthropist Redmond Barry, police commissioner Frederick Charles Standish, and forensic pathologist and drama critic J. E. Neild.'
This article backgrounds Sullivan's novel but goes on to explore the life and death by suicide of Alice Maes, aka Marie St Denis.