Fast-paced and populated with a cast of rogues, actors and playwrights this murder mystery offers an enthralling read and the true flavour of Elizabethan London.

Elizabethan playwright Dekker lives a fast, furious, and exciting existence in London, skirting poverty, danger, and the love of a good woman. He finds work as an adapter at Philip Henslowe's theatrical company and as a book-holder at Essex House - before being watched by Christopher Marlowe and others as politics intrude.

Theft of a hidden cipher and murder of a local constable keep him in trouble. Able plotting and namedropping will appeal to fans of Elizabethan theater and Simon Hawke's Shakespearean mysteries.