Showing results by author "John Pilkington" in All Categories

England 1616. Robert Belstrang, ex-magistrate bored with country life, comes to London to investigate the strange disappearance of Thomas Jessop, son of a poor Catholic neighbor. He locates the youth in Bedlam asylum, silent and starving himself. When he tries to free Jessop, he is warned off the case by a politic lawyer, Anstis. Soon after, Belstrang finds himself drugged, robbed and falsely imprisoned. Once released Belstrang persists in his investigation, but he is thwarted at every turn: unseen forces are at work who seemingly want Thomas Jessop to die.

Thomas's friend Ben Mallam, the streetwise jingler (a dealer in used horses) returns to aid him. After a run of bad luck, perhaps Ben's fortunes will change as he helps Thomas unravel a deadly plot which strikes at the very heart of Tudor England, threatening the security of the nation itself.

1600: A new century dawns. War with Spain has dragged on for 15 years, the conflict in Ireland for six. Unease stalks England in the dying years of Elizabeth I’s reign, and Elizabethan intelligencer Martin Marbeck is bored. Then a message from his spymaster, Sir Robert Cecil, arrives: the existence of a spy has been discovered, code-named Morera, and Marbeck must uncover the true identity of this traitor quickly, before rumours of the young King Philip III forming a new Armada prove themselves to be true.

England, 1618. At his manor of Thirldon, ex-Justice Belstrang - still at loggerheads with his old rival Justice Standish—receives devastating news: King James intends to purchase the estate for his favourite, the Marquis of Buckingham—and Belstrang must comply. In the ensuing turmoil, while his son-in-law George petitions the King on his behalf, Belstrang receives a plea from a dying friend, Sir Richard Mountford, to visit him at Foxhill Manor. To take his mind off his troubles Belstrang goes—and discovers things are not so simple.

England, 1617 Susanna Cobbett, teenage daughter of a powerful Worcester landowner, is found dead in a gloomy woodland pond which has an evil reputation as the Witching Pool. The girl is said to have drowned herself, driven to madness by a local widow named Agnes Mason, who is arrested on a charge of witchcraft. If found guilty, she will hang at the next Assizes. But Justice Belstrang, shrewd ex-magistrate and sceptic, does not believe a word of it. And when Agnes's family beg him to help, he finds himself caught up in an ever-darkening mystery.

1596. Sir Robert Vicary is to host an important guest, Grigori Stanic, the ambassador of distant Muscovy, and Thomas the Falconer is called on to entertain the Russian party. The ambassador is to make a magnificent gift to Boris Godunov, brother-in-law to the feeble Tsar Feodor: A priceless gold chain. But no sooner has it arrived than it is stolen. So begins Thomas hunt for The Muscovy Chain...

In the castle of Kronborg, during the reign of the mighty King Rorik, an unwanted child is born to a lowly servant, Gitte, and an unknown father. But the boy Erik, later known as Yorick, will climb to a position of power that will prove his undoing.