Akunin goes noir as Fandorin meets bandits! Senka Skorikov, orphan and urchin, has been abandoned to the murky world of Moscow’s gangster district. While picking a pocket or two, he glimpses the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and joins the gang of her overlord lover, The Prince, so desperate he is to meet her. Senka climbs the criminal ranks, uncovering a stash of precious metal, and gradually capturing the heart of his beloved Death - so named for the life expectancy of her lovers. But as the bandit community balks at his success on both fronts, threats on his life begin to pour in.A dandy and his ‘Chinese’ sidekick seem to be taking an inordinate interest in Senka’s welfare, and it becomes clear that those threatening Senka are linked to a spate of murders, grizzly even by underworld standards. Fandorin must unweave a tangled web of narcotics, false identities and organised crime - but can he survive an encounter with the ever-alluring Death unscathed? Find out in the darkest Fandorin to date!

Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth, the country raises the largest militia army it has ever seen. The King has debased the currency to pay for the war, and England is in the grip of soaring inflation and economic crisis. Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of 'monstrous wrongs' committed against a young ward of the court, which have already involved one mysterious death, Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth. Once arrived, Shardlake and Barak find themselves in a city preparing to become a war zone; and Shardlake takes the opportunity to also investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettipace, a young woman incarcerated in the Bedlam. The emerging mysteries around the young ward, and the events that destroyed Ellen's family nineteen years before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne. Events will converge on board one of the King's great warships, primed for battle in Portsmouth harbour: the Mary Rose...

Matthew Shardlake series #5

Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII’s invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. As the English fleet gathers at Portsmouth, the country raises the largest militia army it has ever seen. The King has debased the currency to pay for the war, and England is in the grip of soaring inflation and economic crisis.

Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of ‘monstrous wrongs’ committed against a young ward of the court, which have already involved one mysterious death, Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth. Once arrived, Shardlake and Barak find themselves in a city preparing to become a war zone; and Shardlake takes the opportunity to also investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettiplace, a young woman incarcerated in the Bedlam.

The emerging mysteries around the young ward, and the events that destroyed Ellen’s family nineteen years before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne.

Events will converge on board one of the King’s great warships, primed for battle in Portsmouth harbour: the Mary Rose...

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.