Edward Marston

London, Autumn 1916. When he slips out of a house in the early hours, Simon Wilder is too preoccupied to realise that he is being stalked. As he walks along the street, lights begin to dim as a warning that there’s another Zeppelin attack. British...

February 1918. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Detective Sergeant Joe Keedy are pulled from their beds to attend a sinister siege involving three burglars where one policeman has already been shot dead. Attempts at talking the men in the house...

1817. Dawn breaks on a summer’s day in Chalk Farm, London, and the scene is set for a duel between a lady’s two ardent admirers. Paul Skillen has been teaching Mark Bowerman how to shoot properly, and although he is not sanguine of his chances, stands...

1865. A passenger train stands in York station. Jack Follis, the guard, patrols the platform to make sure that everyone is safely aboard. Returning to the brake van to load a box into it, he is alarmed by a smell of burning. Before he can find the...

Halloween 1861. A special train with two carriages steams across the Lake District at night on its way to a place notorious for its record of supernatural incidents. Lighting inside the carriages is poor and without warning, the lamp goes out in the...

1817. Upon receiving a letter from an old family friend, Clemency van Emden returns from Holland to find her father dead. She refuses to believe the middle-aged man died of natural causes, and the suspicious circumstances of his life during the past...

1866. On a dark, brooding summer's evening, Agnes Lenham seats herself in an empty first-class compartment on the train to Portsmouth. She is joined by a naval officer and a middle-aged man, in high spirits after dining at his club, travelling to his...

December 1917. Ada Hobbes has cleaned for Dr Tindall for many years and begins this frosty morning like any other day. But it turns out the house is not empty after all. The blood-covered George Tindall is sprawled across the floor. Detective...

East Anglia, 1861. Alone in a first-class carriage, the Swarbricks are robbed at gunpoint. But when the universally-admired Swarbrick fights back, the train robber takes more than money and jewellery, killing the man working to unify East Anglia's...

London, 1818. MP Sir Roger Mellanby attends a performance of Macbeth at Covent Garden, featuring Hannah Granville. It is the final performance of what has been a triumphant production and both the Prince Regent and Hannah's love, Bow Street Rival Paul...

1860, Wimborne, Dorset. Rebecca Tullidge, miserably married to her callous husband, is having an affair with a railway officer, John Bedloe. Much to her distress, she trips over her lover's dead body on the railway tracks. Determined to win votes for...

March, 1918. British newspapers carry the dreadful news that the German Spring Offensive has begun, with thousands of British lives lost. Detective Sargeant Joe Keedy is awaiting release from hospital in London and is anxious to resume the fight...

Following a string of successful performances along the west coast, the Moscardi Circus is travelling by train to Hexham on the Newcastle to Carlisle Railway for their next show. Yet a collision on the track causes pandemonium. When the headless body...

Nicholas Bracewell befriends a young beggar who is trying to eke out a living as a counterfeit crank, pretending to have spectacular epileptic fits in order to get money from gullible bystanders. When the beggar is murdered inside Bridewell, Nicholas...

It is the juiciest piece of gossip the citizens of Norwich have heard for a long time. The ruthless Richard de Fontenel is himself the victim of robbery. In addition to two priceless golden elephants that he was using to lure the beautiful lady...

Pentonville Prison. Wally Hibbert is serving a long sentence for arson. But after befriending and tricking one of the officers, Hibbert makes an audacious escape. Inspector Marmion, the detective who arrested Hibbert, is warned to watch his back, but...

Henry Beaumont keeps a renowned pack of foxhounds, quick, brave and ruthless at the kill. One December hunt, the dogs uncover more than a fox in the woodlands - brushing aside dead leaves, Beaumont finds the crushed body of Martin Reynard, a former...

Hugh d’Avranches, Earl of Chester, is enraged when his hawk is killed by an arrow in the Forest of Delamere. When two poachers are caught, he orders their execution yet neither of them fired the arrow. As Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret come to...

Soldier Ralph Delchard and lawyer Gervase Bret lead a group of the King's finest commissioners into the war-torn lands of Yorkshire to settle land claims and compile the Domesday Book. One island of wealth and luxury remains in Yorkshire: the castle...

Lord Westfield's Men, the most successful troupe in London and a prime target for jealousy and resentment, are plagued by a series of practical jokes. But when one of their actors is murdered, the humour turns distinctly sour. Appalling events...

The ordered calm of Gloucester Abbey is shattered by the murder of one of the monks. The Abbey becomes paralysed with fear and the Abbot is ill-equipped to deal with such a heinous crime, especially as suspicion inevitably falls on the brothers...

A fire at the Queen's Head deprives Westfield's Men of their home so they seize the opportunity to travel to Denmark with their patron, Lord Westfield, who is to marry a beautiful young Danish widow. When they reach Elsinore castle, they are given a...

December 1864. As a cold winter wind scours the Worcestershire countryside, an excursion train comes through a tunnel in the Malvern Hills, only to be confronted by a blockage on the line ahead. The driver manages to slow the train down so that the...

Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret are royal commissioners appointed to investigate irregularities that come to light during the compilation of the Domesday Book in the reign of William the Conqueror. They arrive in Canterbury to be met by the news that...