Christopher Marlowe had never liked Robert Greene when he was alive. But when Greene is found dead shortly after sending Kit a desperate letter, he feels duty bound to find out who killed him. Before long, the playwright-sleuth finds himself in the midst of a baffling murder investigation - where nothing is as it first appears.
Senator Gaius Lucius Nerva is taken ill at a dinner party and dies a few days later. His heartbroken wife, Flavia, is told it was a natural death. Calidus, Nerva?s recently freed slave, suspects otherwise. As he embarks upon the funeral ceremonies, Calidus becomes more and more convinced that his master was murdered and begins an investigation, seeking out everyone who had attended the dinner party. His enquiries lead him to rub shoulders with the ?great and good? of Rome; senators, soldiers, even the ruthless and mercurial Emperor Nero. And his former lover, Julia Eusabia, who seems intent on rekindling their romance and luring him away from his wife and daughter. Calidus? quest is by no means easy or safe as he encounters the darkest and most dangerous people in Rome. But he knows he must keep searching for the person responsible, to bring justice to the master he had loved
A grisly discovery fished out of the River Thames marks the start of an intriguing new case for private detectives Grand & Batchelor. September, 1873. Private enquiry agents Matthew Grand and James Batchelor have been hired by timber merchant Selwyn Byng following the disappearance of his heiress wife. The only clue they have to go on is a badly spelled note demanding the princely sum of £5,000 if Byng is ever to see Emilia again. As the two investigators assess whether Byng has been telling them the whole truth, a second package brings an extremely unwelcome surprise. At the same time, a human torso is found floating in the River Thames. Could there be a connection to Emilia Byng's disappearance ... ?
As advance guard for the Queen's Progress, Christopher Marlowe tackles murder and intrigue within some of England's grandest stately homes. May, 1591. When Queen Elizabeth decides to embark on a Royal Progress, visiting some of the grandest homes in England, her new spymaster, Sir Robert Cecil, sends Kit Marlowe on ahead, to ensure all goes smoothly. But Marlowe's reconnaissance mission is dogged by disaster: at Farnham Hall, a body is hurled from the battlements; at Cowdray Castle, a mock tournament ends in near tragedy; at Petworth, a body is discovered in the master bedroom, shot dead.By the time he reaches Chichester, Marlowe fears the worst. Are the incidents linked? Is there a conspiracy to sabotage the Queen's Progress? Who is pulling the strings - and why? To uncover the truth, Marlowe must come up with a fiendishly clever plan.
October, 1586. Sir Francis Walsingham has despatched Kit Marlowe to the English College in Rheims where he suspects the Catholic traitor Matthew Baxter is hiding. Infiltrating the College undercover, Marlowe learns that the community has been rocked by a series of unexplained and violent deaths. With the help of master codebreaker Thomas Phelippes, can Christopher Marlowe unearth a murderer, track down a traitor and extract himself from the scorpions' nest without being fatally stung?
June, 1870. The author Charles Dickens has been found dead in his summerhouse where he had been working on his final, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Did he die of natural causes - or is there something more sinister behind his sudden demise. Private investigators Matthew Grand and James Batchelor have been hired to find out.
The wedding of Matthew Grand's sister is marred by cold-blooded murder in the intriguing new Grand & Batchelor Victorian mystery. March, 1873. Private investigators Matthew Grand and James Batchelor have arrived at Matthew's substantial family home on the Maine coast for the wedding of his sister Martha. Friends and relatives have gathered from far and wide to celebrate the occasion ? but nothing is going according to plan. A long-lost cousin turns up out of the blue after an absence of fourteen years. The best man is nowhere to be found. And no one seems to have a good word to say about the bridegroom.Preparations are thrown into chaos when a body is discovered in an upstairs bedroom. As Grand and Batchelor investigate, they discover that more than one member of the household has a scandalous secret to hide. And several more family skeletons are destined to tumble from the closet before the two enquiry agents uncover the shocking truth
1590. The queen's spymaster is dead. Nicholas Faunt, believes he was poisoned and has ordered Kit Marlowe to discover who killed him. Marlowe consults the leading scientists and thinkers in the country, but is convinced that someone is hiding a deadly secret. To outwit the killer, Marlowe must devise an impossibly ingenious plan.
July, 1868. On receiving a commission to look into the suspicious death of Lafayette Baker, Head of the US National Detective Police, private investigators Matthew Grand and James Batchelor leave London for Washington DC, where they find a country still scarred by the Civil War, and unearth a surprising number of suspects who wanted Baker dead.
"Introducing 19th-century private investigators Matthew Grand and James Batchelor in the first of a brand-new historical mystery series." April, 1865. Having been an eye witness to the assassination of President Lincoln, Matthew Grand, a former captain of the 3rd Cavalry of the Potomac, has come to London on an undercover assignment to hunt down the last of the assassin's co-conspirators. Ambitious young journalist Jim Batchelor has been charged with writing a feature article on the visiting American, with the aim of getting the inside story on the assassination. Both men are distracted from their missions by the discovery of a body behind the Haymarket Theatre in London s Soho district. It's the latest in a series of grisly garrottings by a killer known as the Haymarket Strangler. As Grand and Batchelor team up to pursue their investigations through the dark underbelly of Victorian London, it becomes clear that there may be a disturbing connection between the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the Haymarket Strangler.