Part of Series
Inspector Sam Blackstone has dealt with arsonists before—but never one quite like this. If the arsonist’s true purpose is to make the government hand over one hundred thousand pounds, why does he seem so reluctant to apply the necessary pressure? Why does he content himself with burning down a single warehouse, when he could set an entire riverside wharf ablaze? And why firebomb a single sloop, when it would have been just as easy to destroy the whole fleet? In order to answer these questions, Blackstone—aided by Dr Ellie Carr, a passionate disciple of the new science of criminal pathology—must follow a trail of death and destruction. That trail will lead them to the very centre of government itself. And, not for the first time, Blackstone soon realises that in solving this case, he may well be destroying his own career. Blackstone and the Burning Secret is a brilliantly plotted historical mystery from a master of the genre. Praise for Sally Spencer: “Spencer's finest hour: a tightly plotted puzzler with surprises at every turn” Kirkus Reviews “Spencer is an accomplished craftsman who serves up a good puzzle and deftly solves it with intelligence and insight” Publishers Weekly “Characters are diverse, intriguing, and believable . . . plots never fail to surprise; and the procedural details are grittily realistic” Kirkus Reviews Sally Spencer worked as a teacher both in England and Iran - where she witnessed the fall of the Shah. She now writes full time. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.
Author
A pseudonym used by Alan Rustage. Sally Spencer is a pen name, first adopted when the author (actually called Alan Rustage) was writing sagas and it was almost obligatory that a woman's name appeared on the cover (other authors like Emma Blair and Mary Jane Staples are also men). Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a teacher. In 1978-79 he was working in Iran and witnessed the fall of the Shah (see the Blog for what it was like to live through a revolution). He got used to having rifles - and, one occasion, a rocket launcher - pointed at him by both soldiers and revolutionaries, but he was never entirely comfortable with it. He lived in Madrid for over twenty years, and still considers it the most interesting and exciting city he has ever visited, but for the last few years he has opted for a quieter life in the seaside town of Calpe, on the Costa Blanca. His first series of books were historical sagas set in Cheshire (where he grew up) and London. They were very popular with his English readers, but his American readers find the dialect something of a strain. He has written twenty books featuring DCI Woodend (a character based partly on a furniture dealer he used to play dominoes with) and ten (so far!) about Woodend's protegé Monika Paniatowski. His DI Sam Blackstone books are set in Victorian/Edwardian London, New York and Russia, and the Inspector Paco Ruiz books have as their backdrop the Spanish Civil War. Alan is a competitive games player who likes bridge and pub quizzes. It is only by enforcing iron discipline that he doesn't play video games all the time. He now lives on Spain's Costa Blanca.
