Blood On The Strand

Public London is executing plans to mark the third anniversary of the Restoration. Private London – murky, dangerous and seething with intrigue – is entertaining other plans. And other executions.Two such deaths are that of wealthy merchant Matthew Webb, stabbed on the Strand one night, and an apparent vagrant, shot during a royal procession. Intelligence agent Thomas Chaloner soon realises that both murders point in one direction: upwards, towards the great and supposedly good, whose wily ploys seep from the sewers of Spitalfields to the Palace of White Hall.