Peter Andersson Book order

A biography of Henry VIII's court fool William Somer, a legendary entertainer and one of the most intriguing figures of the Tudor age. Peter K. Andersson pieces together the fullest picture yet of an enigmatic and unusual man with a very strange job. Somer's story provides new insights into how fools lived and what exactly they did for a living, how monarchs and courtiers related to commoners and people with disabilities, and whether aspects of the Renaissance fool live on in the modern comedian. But most of all, we learn how a commoner without property or education managed to become the court's chief mascot and a continuous presence at the centre of Tudor power from the 1530s to the reign of Elizabeth I. 'Fool' reveals a little-known world, surprising and disturbing, when comedy was something crueller and more unpleasant than we like to think.

From the author of The Cotswolds Werewolf comes a new collection of Sherlock Holmes pastiches in the vein of Conan Doyle, revealing for the first time the secrets behind the theft of the hobnailed boots, the mysterious madness of the Right Honourable Wilfred Crabb, the case of the haunted public house, the curious and seemingly supernatural events surrounding a remote hotel on the east coast, and the truth behind the strange disappearance of Cyrus Thicknesse, the man in the sensible necktie. "I must say, Holmes, I am a bit surprised to see you taking an interest in something based on sympathy." "You do not think me sympathetic?" "Of course I do. But you have said yourself that it is the rational challenge and not the human aspect that draws you to your cases. Humans are mere factors in a problem, I think were your words." "Did I really say that? Hm, well, I am an odd sort, am I not?"