There's a dead body on the Common, so what else can you talk about over dinner? But for a husband and wife whose marriage is on the rocks, their bank manager, their lawyer and his bimbo girlfriend, is it a safe conversation to have, particularly when a writer of lurid crime fiction is also there to make up the numbers? There's a very sharp knife about the place too. And whatever did happen to the missing librarian? A mystery novel which reads like a Hitchcock movie. In this intriguing novel Fidelis Morgan plays tag with the reader, taking them through the minds of six guests at a dinner party where murder is on the menu.

"Brilliantly original" - Lynda La Plante. Heritage, history, war and romance interweave in the three dramatic storylines of MY DARK ROSALEEN, a family saga of Ireland: 1990 Rosaleen - a middle aged, middle class Englishwoman is languishing in a prison cell on charges of terrorism; 1921 Catherine - an Irish heiress gives up everything to live in the Liverpool dockland slums; 1588 Hugo - a young Spanish boy is plunged into the blood-soaked battles of the Spanish Armada and early 17th century Ireland.

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.

The Countess Ashby de la Zouche would not be every parent's choice of chaperone for a beautiful teenager, and still fewer would entrust her with finding the girl a suitable husband - in France, of all places. The second Mrs Alderman Franklyn-Green, however, is willing to go to any lengths to get rid of her unwanted stepdaughter Virginia. And the promise of 100 guineas and a sojourn in the land of gay balls and all-night gambling is sufficient to secure the Countess's services, even if the girl is a complete shrew. Sadly, the exiled English Court at St Germain is far from the den of iniquity the Countess and her maidservant Alpiew were hoping for. Worse, any hopes of enjoying fine French cuisine are dashed when a fellow guest is poisoned. Once more the Countess and Alpiew are plunged into a dangerous investigation. In addition to unravelling plots against three kings and negotiating the culinary eccentricities of the Court of Versailles, our sleuths encounter the Bastille's most mysterious prisoner, and discover - among other depravities - why Lord Whippingham is paying young women to munch in his house of disrepute.

The "Gentleman's magazine" section is a digest of selections from the weekly press; the "(Trader's) monthly intelligencer" section consists of news (foreign and domestic), vital statistics, a register of the month's new publications, and a calendar of forthcoming trade fairs.