WINNER OF THE 2019 CWA HISTORICAL DAGGER

'S. G. MacLean can make any historical period sing with life' Antonia Hodgson

Murder, treachery and a reckoning with his past await Captain Damian Seeker in this gripping historical thriller.

Yorkshire, 1655. Seeker has been ordered to the North - a place from which he fled a decade earlier. A routine visit to the village of Faithly turns ugly when the village commissioner's ward is poisoned at a dinner for locals.

Among those invited was the government-appointed enforcer of Puritan morality in the region. Perhaps this symbol of Cromwell's power was the intended victim? Or Seeker himself? Or was it the young woman, who had a magic way with herbs and was rumoured to be a witch?

As he investigates the girl's death, old secrets come to haunt Seeker. A painful meeting will force a reckoning between his past and present. But with a prominent Royalist on the run in Yorkshire, and a murderer still at large, any distractions could prove deadly.

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Praise for S. G. MacLean

'A gripping tale of crime and sedition' Sunday Times

'Excellent at conveying the insecurities and unsettling memories that bedevil Cromwell's dying Protectorate' Daily Mail

'The best historical crime novel of the year' Sunday Express

'One of the best writers of historical crime . . . a fascinatingly flawed hero' The Times