London 1671, and the damage caused by the Great Fire still overshadows the capital.
And when a man’s brutally disfigured body is discovered in the ruins of an ancient almshouse, architect Cat Hakesby is ordered to stop restoration work.
It is obvious he has been murdered, and Whitehall secretary James Marwood is ordered to investigate.
It’s possible the victim could be one of two local men who have vanished – the first, a feckless French tutor connected to the almshouse’s owner; the second, a possibly treacherous employee of the Council of Foreign Plantations.
The pressure on Marwood mounts as Charles II’s most influential courtiers, Lord Arlington and the Duke of Buckingham, show an interest in his activities – and Marwood soon begins to suspect the murder trail may lead right to the heart of government.
Meanwhile, a young, impoverished Frenchwoman has caught the eye of the king, a quiet affair that will have monumental consequences.
The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor is published on 2 March, 2023. It’s the sixth in his Marwood and Lovett series of historical crime novels.
The third, The King’s Evil, won the HWA Gold Crown Award for best historical fiction in 2020. You may enjoy our interviews with Andrew from 2020 and from 2021, where he talks about his writing process and his books.
He’s also written about the background story to The King’s Evil in The monarch with the magic touch. And Andrew has promised Historia a feature about The Shadows of London, which will be published later this month.
