“As I gazed upon her face a small black beetle emerged from the ruins of her right eye. It stood uncertainly upon the crest of her cheekbone as if suddenly reluctant to step out further. Though I looked upon the beetle as if it was something unutterably revolting – still I felt like we two had something in common.” Harry didn't know he had a cousin. Then one day he is sent to retrieve her from the church of Saint Brides where she lies dead, eyes gouged out and a rope tied tight across her mouth. The Earl of Shrewsbury demands that Harry discover who killed her, and bestows upon him the assistance of David Dowling, a hulking butcher of uncommon wit and perseverance. Together they follow a murky and increasingly dangerous trail of corruption, from slum and dungeon to hall and palace, to a final shocking conclusion. Originally published by Beautiful Books - now to be reissued by Allison & Busby.

"When Hedges fell face first into his dinner after giving birth to an almighty sneeze, the rest of us just sat and stared at the gravy dripping down the backs of his ears. We watched in silence, gaping at the back of his large unmoving head and the pieces of lamb and fish stuck in his hair. His mouth gaped open and a thin stream of sauce dribbled from the side of his mouth." Harry reckoned he was safest from the plague sat tight behind the city walls. Until Nathaniel Hedges dropped dead on the other side of the dinner table. As the pestilence exerts an ever stronger grip on the city population, so Harry is compelled to venture forth into some of the most diseased parishes of London in search of a serial killer. When the companions of the first victim decide that Harry is the prime suspect, then death seems inevitable.

"I poked the rancid beef about my plate, suppressing a desire to run from this place, dancing and singing, all the way to the Mermaid, for that afternoon I made a momentous decision, the most important decision a man makes, for I decided what to do with the rest of my life. I was going to become an apothecary. I wanted to celebrate, tell the whole world, and drink a toast to myself. Instead I withered beneath the stony glare of Mrs Collis, who stared like she suspected me of a great crime, her face glowing a shade of pale green in the candlelight." Harry thought that the Plague was all over. Until Lord Arlington ordered him to travel to Shyam to find a traitor and bring him back to London. Shyam is a small village that still harbours the plague. The village's inhabitants have barricaded their borders so that no one who enters the village is allowed to leave until the Plague has gone. To enter Shyam is likely to die, but Harry has no choice. The first two installments in this historical crime series were previously published by Beautiful Books but now reissued by A&B.