Synopses & Reviews
Another excellent historical adventure from Susanna Gregory, featuring 17th-century spy Thomas Chaloner London in the spring of 1665 is a city full of fear. There is plague in the streets of St. Giles, the Dutch fleet is preparing to invade, and a banking crisis threatens to leave Charles II's government with no means of paying for the nation's defense. Amid the tension, Thomas Chaloner is ordered to investigate the murder of Dick Wheler, one of the few goldsmith-bankers to have survived the losses that have driven others to bankruptcy—or worse. At the same time, a French spy staggers across the city, carrying the plague from one parish to another. Chaloner's foray into the world of the financiers who live in and around Cheapside quickly convinces him that they are just as great a threat as the Dutch, but their power and greed thwarts him at every turn. Meanwhile, the plague continues to spread across the city, and the body count from the disease and from the fever of avarice starts to rise alarmingly.
Review
"Gregory's exciting, intrigue-filled fifth mystery featuring English spy Thomas Chaloner . . . reinforces this British author's place in the front rank of those penning historicals in the genre." —Publishers Weekly starred review of A Murder on London Bridge
Review
"Excellent . . . effortlessly blends authentic historical details with plenty of red herrings." Publishers Weekly starred review of The Westminster Poisoner
Review
"Crystal-clear prose and deliberate pacing ensure that the reader can follow the twisted trails to the truth as well as Chaloner can." —Publishers Weekly
Review
"Brilliantly evokes 1663 London . . . Gregory salts the plot with several tantalizing subsidiary puzzles." —Publishers Weekly starred review of The Butcher of Smithfield
Review
"As usual, Gregory does a fine job integrating fact and fiction." —Publishers Weekly on The Body in the Thames
Synopsis
The seventh Thomas Chaloner adventure in Restoration London
Thomas Chaloner is relieved to be summoned back to London after his master, the Earl of Clarendon, sent him to Tangier to investigate a case of corruption. Chaloner will be glad to be home and reunited with his new wife, but the trivial reason for his recall exasperates him—the theft of material from the construction site of Clarendon's embarrassingly sumptuous new house just north of Piccadilly. Within hours of his return, Chaloner considers these thefts even more paltry as he is thrust into extra investigations involving threats of assassination, a stolen corpse, and a scheme to frame the Queen for treason. Yet there are connections from them all that thread through the unfinished Clarendon House.
About the Author
Susanna Gregory is a Cambridge academic and the author of the Thomas Chaloner series.