Books like Benton's row. by Frank Yerby

In the waning days of Victorian England, London police officer Thomas Pitt is pulled into a web of political intrigue and a mysterious murder on Southampton Row, forcing him to confront a secret society that threatens both the country and his own family.

DAMNED BY DESIRE Beautiful, sensual Gillian MacAllister had seen her mother degraded by men, and vowed not to follow in her footsteps. Instead Gillian would use men as her tools of pleasure and ambition, to be discarded when they had served their purpose. No man could resist her, no man could keep her, as she climbed the rungs of power and privilege from the raw Southern steel town of Birmingham in the 1890's to the glittering and corrupt capitals of Europe, moving ever closer to her moment of ultimate, overwhelming truth. Temperamental Gillian, heiress of an Alabama fortune, was capable of great loving kindness. But her appetite for corrupting and ruining lives was stronger. One of the many people whose life she ruined murdered her. Now Geoffrey Lynne must find out who done it before his brother, Gregory, is hung for the crime. Geoffrey knows Gregory is innocent. The only problem is that Gregory has confessed and his execution has been scheduled.

Missing pages 158-159