Mystery surrounds the death of Queen Victoria's grandson England, 1892. Victoria, Queen and Empress, is in the 54th year of her reign, when her grandson Prince Eddy, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, is found slaughtered in his bed at Sandringham. Terrified of more royal scandal, the Prince of Wales and his spindoctors decide to cover up the facts and the murder is disguised as death by influenza. Lord Francis Powerscourt, an Irish investigator, is privately asked to find the killer. His quest takes him on a journey through the prince's debauched and dissolute past, across Europe to the misty waterways of Venice where, amidst scandal and suicide, Powerscourt finally unravels themystery of the sweet prince's last goodnight. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK " 'In this excellent novel, Dickinson weaves a tale of blackmail and murder among the royals late in Victoria's reign& [his] knowledge of the arts, history and literature is nothing if not exhaustive, and adds enormously to...

1904: Powerscourt comes out of retirement for one last time, heading for Russia in one of the strangest cases of his career.A British diplomat has been discovered, his throat cut, on one of the bridges spanning the Nevskii Prospekt in St Petersburg. It transpires the diplomat knew a secret - and that secret killed him. As Powerscourt strides through the halls of the Winter Palace and falls foul of the Okhrana - the Russian secret police - he has to attend other matters. Russia is on the verge of revolution and he must escape - before time runs out on him.

An unwelcome guest - Death - gatecrashes a society wedding and Lord Francis Powerscourt is summoned by his barrister friend, Charles Augustus Pugh, to investigate this most singular case of murder in the Fens. The dead man is Randolph Colville, successful wine merchant and father of the groom. The murderer would appear to be his brother Cosmo, found in the same room with a gun in his hand. But is this simply a modern-day version of Cain and Abel, or is there more to it than that? Cosmo isn't speaking and time is running out for him for he has an appointment with the gallows in two weeks. Francis has to act fast and sets out to discover all he can about the dead man - and his brother. Cosmo's silence is bothering him for it can only be for two reasons; either he is protecting a woman - or a family scandal. His investigations take him to the vineyards and towns of Burgundy, where he uncovers evidence of serious malpractise in the Colville wine trade, bitter rivalry with a...

Three men are found with their throats cut, and all are connected in some way to an ancient City of London livery company, the Silkworkers. Lord Powerscourt has no shortage of suspects or suspicions. The first victim had shadowy links with the Secret Service. The second had wiped fifteen years out of his own past. The third, a man who collected women at church during Christmas Carol services, had been threatened by angry husbands and disinherited sons.All the victims had been opposed to the reorganization of the Silkworkers' finances and, interestingly, Sir Peregrine Fishborne, the head of the Silkworkers, was present just before each victim's death. Lord knows that the key to solving the mystery lies in the strange markings found on the bodies, which no coroners can identify.From the Hardcover edition.

The British Museum in Bloomsbury is home to one of the Caryatids, a statue of a maiden that acted as one of the six columns in a temple which stood on the Acropolis in ancient Athens. Lord Elgin had brought her to London in the nineteenth century, and even though now she was over 2,300 years old, she was still rather beautiful - and desirable.Which is why Lord Francis Powerscourt finds himself summoned by the British Museum to attend a most urgent matter. The Caryatid has been stolen and an inferior copy left in her place. Powerscourt agrees to handle the case discreetly - but then comes the first death: an employee of the British Museum is pushed under a rush hour train before he and the police can question him.What had he known about the statue's disappearance? And who would want such a priceless object? Powerscourt and his friend Johnny Fitzgerald undertake a mission that takes them deep into the heart of London's Greek community and the upper echelons of English society to...

In May 1901 the Salisbury Galleries announce the biggest exhibition of the Old Master Paintings ever seen in Europe. Excitement is intense. But before it opens, one of Britain s leading art experts, Christopher Montague, is found murdered in his study. When Lord Francis Powerscourt is called in to investigate he finds every book, notepad and scrap of paper has been removed from the scene of the crime. Montague had been working on something that would have rocked the art world. Did his article that claimed a number of the Old Masters had been painted recently by a single hand have anything to do with his death? Powerscourt embarks on an odyssey through a treacherous world of art dealers and picture restorers in pursuit of a master forger. He travels to Sicily where the trail goes cold, but, after the thrills and danger of that wild, lawless island, in a remote corner of England, the truth is finally revealed.

Book DescriptionThe 13th Lord Francis Powerscourt murder mystery. Product DescriptionLondon, 1912, and the famed Ballet Russes have come to London to perform. Anticipation is high, for Diaghilev’s troupe is renowned throughout Europe. At the end of their famed performance of Thamar at the Royal Opera House, the Georgian queen stabs her prince to death and throws him into the river. But life mirrors art when the prince is found truly dead, stabbed through the heart in the orchestra pit below stage. But the corpse is not the dancer in the programme. It is his understudy. Powerscourt is summoned to investigate. But who was the intended victim – the understudy, or the star of the Ballets Russes? And the Ballet Russes are not the only Russian visitors in London this season. Lenin, Europe’s most dangerous revolutionary, has sent some bank robbery money to be changed into pounds. There are stolen jewels from St Petersburg to be sold. And there are other darker forces abroad too and Powerscourt has to look death in the face before he can solve the mystery of Death at the Ballet Russes