Christmas, 1669. In the grip of the coldest winter for years, the River Thames is frozen from bank to bank and London celebrates with a traditional frost fair held on its broad back. Revellers come from far and wide to enjoy the spectacle. Among the throng is ambitious young architect Christopher Redmayne. By chance he meets a good friend, Constable Jonathan Bale, attending with his family. As the adults talk, Bale’s sons skate around them. But their competitive nature spells trouble onto thin ice and is in danger of crashing into the freezing water below. Christopher and Jonathan save the boy but make a chilling discovery – the frozen corpse of a naked man embedded in the ice. Bale vows to investigate but Christopher sees no reason to involve himself further until his own brother Henry is accused of the murder and thrown in jail. Now Henry faces execution if Christopher cannot prove his innocence. The architect must risk all he holds dear, both professionally and personally, to uncover the truth.

Domesday Books

‘I hoped that we might be safe but we have not seen the last of them, after all. They want more blood.’During a performance of their new play, A Trick to Catch a Chaste Lady, Westfield’s Men are sabotaged, and they find themselves in the throngs of an audience-player melee. In the midst of the rotten-vegetable battlefield, one of the audience members is found stabbed, and their masterful clown, Barnaby Gill, is discovered with a broken leg.With the company clown-less, they must find a replacement before they embark on their tour of Kent. Enter Gideon Mussett, a ruffian, scallywag and all around drunk. Thinking the victim in the theatre was an accident. Nicholas Bracewell and his fellows soon learn that there is more to this death than a drunken brawl. With a murderer still on the loose, it appears further deaths are on the cards, but who will be the second victim?Amazon.com Review"This was no random act of malice," proclaims stage manager Nicholas Bracewell, after an audience brawl disrupts the latest comedic performance by Westfield's Men, in Edward Marston's The Vagabond Clown. If there was any doubt of design behind this affray, it's quickly dispelled by the discovery of a dead spectator in the gallery, Fortunates Hope--stabbed in the back. So who wielded the dagger, and why? Bracewell and the other members of his troupe haven't the time to find out, before they are ousted from their usual stage in Elizabethan London and forced to take to the road for their income, beginning a tour of the Kent countryside that will bring them even more trouble than they could typically find in the English capital.Misfortune is guaranteed when--needing a clown to stand-in for the querulous Barnaby Gill, whose leg was broken during the riot--the company hires his hated but gifted rival, Gideon Mussett. Aware of Mussett's reputation for "drunkenness and truculence," Bracewell wrests from him a pledge to behave. However, this proxy jester proves difficult to handle from the outset, and only becomes more so as his performances gain Westfield's Men acclaim. Among his supposed infractions are several prankish attacks on the injured Gill, who has insisted on traveling with Westfield's Men in order to ensure that Mussett won't try usurping his position. But Bracewell thinks fault for his company's recent adversities may lie, instead, with another, less successful band of thespians who are also traveling through the area, and whose patron knew the murdered Hope. He's convinced of their culpability after Westfield's Men are ambushed on the open road, Gill is threatened with drowning, and Giddy Mussett is assaulted in a stable. Somebody, it appears, is determined to bring the curtain down on Bracewell's band, once and for all.The Nicholas Bracewell novels (of which The Vagabond Clown is the 13th) offer a fulfilling blend of hilarity and heart, romance and mystery. And Marston's flair for capturing both the upright and ribald elements of his Elizabethan setting is to be envied. If there's any disappointment in these pages, it's that a late scene involving a sea chase never achieves the swashbuckling excitement it promises. --J. Kingston PierceFrom Publishers WeeklyEdgar nominee Marston sends in the clowns in his 13th Nicholas Bracewell mystery (after 2002's The Bawdy Basket), once again providing an engaging look at the life of players in Shakespeare's day, with their aristocratic sponsors, resident playwrights, actor-managers and apprentice boys (who played female parts). When a riot and murder (both perhaps engineered by a jealous rival company) during a play performance deprive Westfield's Men of their London venue and cripple their clown, the company seems doomed, but ever-reliable, ever-resourceful Nicholas finds a substitute clown and helps to arrange a tour in Kent. The author vividly evokes the sights, sounds and smells of the taverns, inns, guildhalls and castles visited by the players, each of whom is a distinct personality. He shows how important it was for travelers to have skills as carpenters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights and fighters. The suspense builds, as attacks and delays by clever, ruthless adversaries imperil the company's livelihood and very existence. Excellent as the theater background is, the climax may come as a disappointment to some readers, especially those who appreciate how fervently Catholics held to their faith in Elizabethan times. FYI: Marston is the pseudonym of Keith Miles, who is also the author of The Owls of Gloucester and other titles in his Domesday Book mystery series.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When the engines finally met, there was a deafening clash and the Brighton Express twisted and buckled, tipping its carriages onto the other line and producing a cacophony of screams, howls of pain and groans from the passengers. It was a scene of utter devastation.October 1854. As an autumnal evening draws to a close, crowds of passengers rush to make the departure of the London to Brighton Express. A man watches from the shadows nearby, grimly satisfied as the train pulls out of the station ...Chaos, fatalities and unbelievable destruction are the scene soon after when the train derails on the last left of its journey. What led to such devastation, and could it simply be a case of driver error? Detective Inspector Colbeck, thinks not. But digging deep to discover the intended target of the accident takes time, something Colbeck doesn't have as the killer prepares to strike again.

In a London ravaged by the Great Fire, Christopher Redmayne envisages the rebuilding of the city. He is thrown together with Jonathan Bale, a decidedly Puritan constable, when one of his clients is killed, leading the pair on a journey through the dark underbelly of London and the hedonistic Court. Meeting in the ashes, Christopher Redmayne, an architect with Cavalier instincts, and Jonathan Bale are hardly kindred spirits. Redmayne dedicates himself to rebuilding the city that Bale believes was destroyed by its own inner corruption. The two men are thrown together when they catch thieves who are stealing from the house that Redmayne has designed for Sir Ambrose Northcott. The foul murder of Sir Ambrose joins them again, albeit reluctantly, in a complex and perilous investigation that takes them through the brothels and gaming houses of London, across to Paris, and back again to the hedonistic Court.

A scurrilous newspaper has built up a large following by publishing details of political and sexual scandals. It is remarkably well-informed and has therefore created a whole host of enemies. When the editor is killed and the printing press smashed to bits, the Invisible Detectives are hired by the man who financed the production of the paper. He wants the killer brought to justice and the scandal sheet revived. Peter and Paul Skillen find themselves in great danger as they unearth an enormous amount of scandal and corruption before the villains are brought to book.

A beautiful woman. An unrequited love. An excuse for murder.Araminta Jewell is one of the beauties of her day. Even her marriage to the staid and ugly Sir Martin Culthorpe has not discouraged her hordes of admirers. It is during her first sitting for a portrait painted by the fashionable French artist Jean-Paul Villemot that the architect Christopher Redmayne meets the lovely Lady Culthorpe, although he has heard much about her through his brother Henry, one of her most ardent pursuers. Before the portrait can be finished and revealed, however, Sir Martin is murdered. Joining fores with his good friend, the puritan constable Jonathan Bale, Christopher embarks on a quest to discover the killer's identity.In his latest Restoration mystery, Edward Marston, the master of historical detail, reveals the dark and often debauched depths of seventeenth-century London.