The Mystery of Lady Audley

Young lawyer Robert Audley, a libertine who prefers canaries and dogs to legal practice, encounters someone else's misfortune for the first time: an old acquaintance of Robert's, gold digger George Talboys, has been widowed. To distract Talboys from his sorrowful... thoughts, Robert invites him to his uncle's house in an ancient estate — the best place in the world. Interacting with the noble and generous Sir Audley and his young wife Lady Audley, the kindest woman in all the United Kingdom, will surely help the unfortunate George cope with his loss and return to life. But on the eve of the meeting with Milady, Talboys mysteriously disappears — and Robert begins an investigation.
 
«The Mystery of Lady Audley» (1862) — the most famous book by British writer Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1837–1915), an example of the Victorian «sensation novel» — a detective story with elements of high society fiction.