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The third Ashcombe File
The Lamplighter's Wife
Forty lamps a night for eleven years. Then none.
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About this book
She lit the same forty lamps every evening for eleven years. One night she didn't come home.
Every evening for eleven years she lit the same forty lamps. Then one night she walked out of the last street and never came home. Ashcombe must work out which of her neighbours was waiting for her to leave — and why the whole street agrees on a version of the evening that cannot possibly be true.
The author on this book
Do I need to read the Ashcombe Files in order?
Each case is solved within its own book, so you can start anywhere. That said, Ashcombe's own story runs straight through the series, and readers tell me the third book lands hardest if you've been there from the start.
How historically accurate is the setting?
The places are invented, the period isn't. The drainage of the fens, the decline of the coastal trade and the way a 1923 village closed ranks around its own are all drawn from the record.
Content guidance
A murder mystery of the period: bodies, blunt violence and the language of the time, handled without dwelling on detail.
Occasional period-appropriate swearing.
Murders described after the fact, not on the page.
Implied only.
Heavy drinking and tobacco throughout, true to the era.
Themes: Grief, Shell shock, Corruption
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Reader reviews
I read it in two sittings
The fen itself is almost the villain. I could feel the damp coming off the page, and I didn't work out who had folded his hands for him until the last forty pages.
Harriet L. · verified purchase
Quiet, patient, then devastating
Marsh doesn't rush anything. She lets a village talk itself into a corner and then walks Ashcombe to the wall with it. The best historical mystery I have read this year.
Michael R. · verified purchase
Wonderful sense of place
I came for the period detail and stayed for the detective. One small wobble in the middle, but the ending more than earns it.
Priya N. · verified purchase
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Book details
Pages
352 (est.)
Word count
108,500
Chapters
36
Language
English
Published
20 January 2026
Also available on
Publisher
Ashcombe Press
The Ashcombe Files
"For the woman on the last street, whoever she was."