Shona MacLean

It is Midsummer, 1631. While Alexander Seaton and his fellow masters enjoy the holiday with their students, Robert Sim, librarian of Marischal College, Aberdeen, is murdered in a dark alleyway in town. While the university and town authorities investigate the murder, Seaton is asked by the college principal to look into Sim's private life.

Is the young man merely drunk or does his tottering walk suggest something more sinister? When he collapses in front of two sisters on a dark, wet night, they guess rightly that he's been murdered by poisoning. So begins this tale set in the town of Banff, Scotland in the 1620s.

London, 1654. John Winter, hero of Cromwell's all-powerful army, is murdered and the lawyer, Elias Ellingworth, found standing over the bleeding body, clutching a knife. Despite the damning evidence, Damian Seeker, agent of the Lord Protector is not convinced of Ellingworth's guilt. He will stop at nothing to bring the killer to justice: and Seeker knows better than any man where to search.