IT IS 1704 AND EUROPE IS AT WAR 'Take this sword as you own and wear it with more honour than the man from whom you took it' With Lord Churchill's words ringing in his ears, the courageous young Captain Daniel Rawson embarks on a dangerous mission to lead his men into battle against the French enemy. He must succeed at all costs- the future of England is at stake. But Rawson is the target of the murderous General Salignac who will stop at nothing to see his adversary dead. As Rawson and his men march across the continent, he must keep one step ahead of Salignac's brigands and live to fight heroically at the Battle of Blenheim. The author of the bestselling Railway detective series triumphs with this stunning first book in the Captain Rawson series.

London 1699. Anastasia Ashby de la Zouche, Baroness Penge, Countess of Clapham, former mistress to Charles II, has fallen on hard times. Cast into the notorious Fleet Prison by the bum-bailiffs, she is forced to turn to journalism: gathering salacious tit-bits for a scandal sheet. But the Countess and Alpiew, her maidservant, encounter more intrigue than they bargained for when a mysterious woman hires them to follow her husband Beau, whom she suspects of adultery. Their pursuit of Beau leads them to playhouses, lecture halls, the half-constructed St Paul's' Cathedral and the dives of Alsatia, only to end abruptly in a Covent Garden churchyard - leaving the Countess and Alpiew implicated in a murder. And worse is to follow, for to unravel their only clue to the identity of the real killer they must penetrate the mysteries of alchemy.