Edward Marston

March, 1918. British newspapers carry the dreadful news that the German Spring Offensive has begun, with thousands of British lives lost. Detective Sargeant Joe Keedy is awaiting release from hospital in London and is anxious to resume the fight against crime on the Home Front.

September 1907. George Dillman sets sail from Liverpool to New York on the Lusitania's maiden voyage. Posing as a passenger, Dillman is in fact an undercover detective hired by the Cunard Line to keep an eye out for petty crimes....

A man’s body is found mutilated in Savernake Forest and the residents of Bedwyn sleep uneasy at night, fearing a monster. When Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret arrive, they discover that the locals are harbouring dark secrets and that the real killer may be closer to home....

London, 1851. With the opening of the Great Exhibition at hand, interest in mounting in the engineering triumphs of the railways, but not everyone feels like celebrating....

The small village of Maldon is controlled by the wealthy and rapacious FitzCorbucion family, led by Hamo FitzCorbucion, the lord of Blackwater Castle. When his eldest son, Guy, is found murdered, an enraged Hamo demands justice....

Nicolas Picard is riding home from Exeter when he's attacked by a snarling wildcat. Yet, when the body is found, there are lacerations on his neck put there by a human hand....

Theatre troupe Westfield’s Men take on a new actor, Francis Quilter, after reaching new heights of success....

Three powerful Norman lords and a Saxon thegn watch their horses competing in a race near Woodstock. When one of the riders is murdered during the race, suspicion falls on the Saxon....

The ordered calm of Gloucester Abbey is shattered by the murder of one of the monks....

Henry Beaumont keeps a renowned pack of foxhounds, quick, brave and ruthless at the kill. One December hunt, the dogs uncover more than a fox in the woodlands - brushing aside dead leaves, Beaumont finds the crushed body of Martin Reynard, a former member of his own household....

The audience was merry indeed when a third devilish imp bounded onstage to join the two that had been written into the script. But backstage all was uproar....

Hugh d’Avranches, Earl of Chester, is enraged when his hawk is killed by an arrow in the Forest of Delamere. When two poachers are caught, he orders their execution, yet neither of them fired the arrow....

When the engines finally met, there was a deafening clash and the Brighton Express twisted and buckled, tipping its carriages on to the other line. It was a scene of utter devastation....

A fire at the Queen's Head deprives Westfield's Men of their home, so they seize the opportunity to travel to Denmark with their patron, Lord Westfield....

December 1860. Headed for the morning shift at the Swindon Locomotive Works is an army of men pouring out of terraced houses built by the GWR, a miniature town and planned community that aims to provide for its employees from cradle to grave....

It is the juiciest piece of gossip the citizens of Norwich have heard for a long time. The ruthless Richard de Fontenel is himself the victim of robbery....

On the shocking discovery of a passenger's body on the Great Western Railway excursion train, Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant, Sergeant Victor Leeming, are dispatched to the scene....

Egypt, 1908. George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield, used to the grand opulence of the Cunard cruise line, are at first disappointed with the Marmora, a small, unimpressive ship owned by the P&O shipping line....

Nicholas befriends a young beggar who is trying to eke out a living as a counterfeit crank, pretending to have spectacular epileptic fits in order to get money from gullible bystanders....

A vicious rivalry threatens to cause chaos for Lord Westfield’s Men when the onstage duels between Owen Elias and Sebastian Carrick become ever more realistic. However, it is an axe that splits open Sebastian's head one night in a Clerkenwell alley....