K.J. Maitland’s gripping Jacobean historical thriller series comes to a dramatic conclusion…

London, 1608. Three years after the Gunpowder Treason, the King’s enemies prepare to strike again.

Daniel Pursglove is tasked by royal command with one final mission: he must infiltrate the Serpents – a secret group of Catholics plotting to kill the King – or risk his own execution. But other conspirators are circling, men who would blackmail Daniel for their own dark ends.

In the Serpents’ den, nothing is quite as it seems. And when Daniel spies a familiar face among their number, the game takes a dangerous turn.

As plague returns to London, tensions reach breaking point. Can Daniel escape the web of treason in which he finds himself ensnared – or has his luck finally run out?

PRAISE FOR THE DANIEL PURSGLOVE SERIES

‘Dark and enthralling’ ANDREW TAYLOR

‘This gripping thriller shows what a wonderful storyteller Maitland is’ THE TIMES

‘Colourful and compelling’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Full of tension and danger… powerfully atmospheric’ JENNIFER SAINT

‘Goes right to the heart of the Jacobean court’ TRACY BORMAN

‘Spies, thieves, murderers and King James I? Brilliant’ CONN IGGULDEN

‘There are few authors who can bring the past to life so compellingly… Brilliant writing and more importantly, riveting reading’ SIMON SCARROW

‘A beautifully crafted thriller… Breathtaking and bone-chilling’ MANDA SCOTT

‘Maitland is a superlative historical novelist’ REBECCA MASCULL

‘Devilishly good’ DAILY MAIL

‘The intrigues of Jacobean court politics simmer beneath the surface in this gripping and masterful crime novel’ KATHERINE CLEMENTS

‘Beautifully written with a dark heart, Maitland knows how to pull you deep into the early Jacobean period’ RHIANNON WARD

‘What a wonderful storyteller Maitland is’ THE TIMES

DANIEL PURSGLOVE BOOK THREE

From the stark Yorkshire landscape to the dark underbelly of Jacobean London, Daniel Pursglove’s new mission sees him fall prey to a ruthless copycat killer…

London, 1607. As dawn breaks, Daniel Pursglove rides north, away from the watchful eye of the King and his spies.

He returns, disguised, to his childhood home in Yorkshire – with his own score to settle. The locals have little reason to trust a prying stranger, and those who remember Daniel do so with contempt.

When a body is found with rope burns about the neck, Daniel falls under suspicion. On the run, across the country, he is pursued by a ruthless killer whose victims all share the same gallows mark. Are these the crimes of someone with a cruel personal vendetta – or has Daniel become embroiled in a bigger, and far more sinister, conspiracy?

A new river of treason is rising, flowing from the fields of Yorkshire right to the heart of the King’s court . . .

PRAISE FOR THE DANIEL PURSGLOVE SERIES

‘Dark and enthralling’ ANDREW TAYLOR

‘This gripping thriller shows what a wonderful storyteller Maitland is’ THE TIMES

‘Colourful and compelling’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Full of tension and danger… powerfully atmospheric’ JENNIFER SAINT

‘Goes right to the heart of the Jacobean court’ TRACY BORMAN

‘Spies, thieves, murderers and King James I? Brilliant’ CONN IGGULDEN

‘There are few authors who can bring the past to life so compellingly… Brilliant writing and more importantly, riveting reading’ SIMON SCARROW

‘A beautifully crafted thriller… Breathtaking and bone-chilling’ MANDA SCOTT

‘Maitland is a superlative historical novelist’ REBECCA MASCULL

‘Devilishly good’ DAILY MAIL

‘The intrigues of Jacobean court politics simmer beneath the surface in this gripping and masterful crime novel’ KATHERINE CLEMENTS

‘Beautifully written with a dark heart, Maitland knows how to pull you deep into the early Jacobean period’ RHIANNON WARD

1607. A man is struck down in the grounds of Battle Abbey, Sussex. Before dawn breaks, he is dead.

Home to the Montagues, Battle has caught the paranoid eye of King James. The Catholic household is rumoured to shelter those loyal to the Pope, disguising them as servants within the abbey walls. And the last man sent to expose them was silenced before his report could reach London.

Daniel Pursglove is summoned to infiltrate Battle and find proof of treachery. He soon discovers that nearly everyone at the abbey has something to hide – for deeds far more dangerous than religious dissent. But one lone figure he senses only in the shadows, carefully concealed from the world. Could the notorious traitor Spero Pettingar finally be close at hand?

As more bodies are unearthed, Daniel determines to catch the culprit. But how do you unmask a killer when nobody is who they seem?

1606. A year to the day that men were executed for conspiring to blow up Parliament, a towering wave devastates the Bristol Channel. Some proclaim God’s vengeance. Others seek to take advantage.

In London, Daniel Pursglove lies in prison waiting to die. But Charles FitzAlan, close adviser to King James I, has a job in mind that will free a man of Daniel’s skill from the horrors of Newgate. If he succeeds.

For Bristol is a hotbed of Catholic spies, and where better for the lone conspirator who evaded arrest, one Spero Pettingar, to gather allies than in the chaos of a drowned city? Daniel journeys there to investigate FitzAlan’s lead, but soon finds himself at the heart of a dark Jesuit conspiracy – and in pursuit of a killer.

Pagans tackle the Knights of St John with terrible consequences in the new medieval thriller by Queen of the Dark Ages, Karen Maitland. Set on the wilds of Dartmoor, this is a ghostly tale for fans of The Essex Serpent, C. J. Sansom’s Shardlake series and The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse.

‘A dark read… fear and hysteria are portrayed with claustrophobic skill’ The Times on THE PLAGUE CHARMER

1316. On the wilds of Dartmoor stands the isolated Priory of St Mary, home to the Sisters of the Knights of St John. People journey from afar in search of healing at the holy well that lies beneath its chapel.

But the locals believe Dartmoor was theirs long before Christianity came to the land. And not all who visit seek miracles. When three strangers reach the moor, fear begins to stir as the well’s waters run with blood.

What witchcraft have the young woman, the Knight of St John and the blind child brought with them?

The Sisters will need to fight for everything they hold dear as the ghosts of the Old World gather in their midst.

Riddle me this: I have a price, but it cannot be paid in gold or silver.

1361. Porlock Weir, Exmoor. Thirteen years after the Great Pestilence, plague strikes England for the second time. Sara, a packhorse man’s wife, remembers the horror all too well and fears for safety of her children.
Only a dark-haired stranger offers help, but at a price that no one will pay.

Fear gives way to hysteria in the village and, when the sickness spreads to her family, Sara finds herself locked away by neighbours she has trusted for years. And, as her husband – and then others – begin to die, the cost no longer seems so unthinkable.

The price that I ask, from one willing to pay… A human life.

In the spring of 1348, tales begin arriving in England of poisonous clouds fast approaching, which have overwhelmed whole cities and even countries, with scarcely a human being left. While some pray more earnestly and live yet more devoutly, others vow to enjoy themselves and blot out their remaining days on earth by drinking and gambling.

And then there are those who hope that God’s wrath might be averted by going on a pilgrimage. But if God was permitting his people to be punished by this plague, then it surely could only be because they had committed terrible sins?

So when a group of pilgrims are forced to seek shelter at an inn, their host suggests that the guests should tell their tales. He dares them to tell their stories of sin, so that it might emerge which one is the best.That is, the worst …

Cerdic, a young boy who has the ability to see into the future, has a mysterious treasure in his possession. A blind old woman once gave him a miniature knife with an ivory bear hilt – the symbol of King Arthur – and told him that when the time comes he will know what he has to do with it.

But when he and his brother, Baradoc, are enlisted into King Arthur’s army, he finds that trouble seems to follow him wherever he goes. When Baradoc dies fighting with King Arthur in an ambush of the Saxons on Solsbury Hill, Cerdic buries the dagger in the side of the hill as a personal tribute to his brother.

Throughout history, Solsbury Hill continues to be the scene of murder, theft and the search for buried treasure. Religion, politics and the spirit of King Arthur reign over the region, wreaking havoc and leaving a trail of corpses and treasure buried in the hill as an indication of its turbulent past.

1154, Oseney Priory, Oxford. When the first performance of The Play of Adam ends in tragedy, the author is compelled to pen a grim warning for the generations that follow:

‘Beware the sins of envy and vainglory, else foul murder ends your story’.

But his words are not heeded, and as the play is performed in many guises throughout the ages, bad luck seems to follow after those involved in its production.

When a snow storm diverts two disparate parties of travellers to the busy market town of Carmarthen in the winter of 1199, an enigmatic stranger appears and requests to stage the play to alleviate tensions, but on the eve of the performance the actor chosen to play Cain is found dead.

When the play is performed in the city of Ely in 1361, the townspeople fear the play has unleashed a demon upon the town after a gruesome discovery is made in the Cathedral. And from Shakespeare’s London to war-time Surrey, no matter the time or the place, each production always seems to end in disaster.

Perhaps it is simply the curse of thespian rivalry that is to blame. Or does the story of man’s first murder somehow infect all who re-enact it?

AD 848. Beornwyn of Lythe, the young daughter of an ealdorman, spurns marriage and chooses to remain a virgin dedicated to Christ. When she is found murdered in the chapel where she kept her nightly vigils, the butterflies resting on her corpse are seen to be a sign from God that she should receive sainthood.

It is not long before St. Beornwyn comes to be regarded as the patron saint of those suffering from diseases and many are drawn to her shrines. But from a priory in Wales to the Greek island of Sifnos, to the final resting place of Beornwyn’s bones in Herefordshire, far from bringing healing to sick pilgrims, it seems that St. Beornwyn’s remains leave a trail of misery, maladies and murder in their wake.

So when a famous poet pens a new tale of St. Beornwyn, it is no wonder that he questions whether she was as holy as has always been believed … and soon, rumours begin to spread from Nottinghamshire that threaten to ruin the reputation of the saint.

Could the saintly deeds attributed to her have been carried out by someone else? What if the virgin was not all she seemed? Will the truth about St. Beornwyn ever be discovered, or will her story remain forever wrapped in legend?