Police-procedural murder mystery that enters the lists of historical crime with shock and suspense. Eight days in spring, 1735: a race against crime. When a handsome young man is shot dead on an estate in the picturesque Champagne region of France, Victor Constant, military policeman, determines to find out why. But no one else, including the local magistrate, seems willing to penetrate the mystery of this brutal death. Alone and against orders, Victor confronts the notorious free-thinker, Voltaire, who found the body. Victor fights to protect the innocent and bring the real killer to justice. A second murder occurs and Victor's task becomes doubly dangerous: unless he can strip bare the conspiracy behind this intricate series of crimes, he stands to lose his military career—and his life. The first in the series of Victor Constant Mysteries, starring a tough military policeman who has all the audacity of a Jack Reacher. Best-selling crime writers say: Peter Lovesey 'Here is an invitation no lover of historical mysteries will be able to resist: eighteenth-century France at the Château de Cirey in the company of Voltaire, who discovers a murdered body. Marvellous tensions between the great free-thinker and Victor Constant, the book's hero. Is it a crime passionel or something far more threatening to the nation? The story dazzles and beguiles and the setting is pitch-perfect.' Peter James 'This is historical fiction writing at its very best. Astonishingly vivid, transports you instantly back in time—wonderful evocation of the period.' The first historical mystery by the author whose novel Siren was hailed by Booklist: 'Cheryl Sawyer's American debut is a grand and glorious delight.' This is taut and intense crime story in which a tenacious trooper works from the ground up to lay bare the secrets of the powerful.