London, 1655, and Cromwell's regime is under threat from all sides. Damian Seeker, Captain of Cromwell's Guard, is all too aware of the danger facing Cromwell. Parliament resents his control of the Army while the Army resents his absolute power. In the east of the City of London, a group of religious fanatics plots rebellion. In the midst of all this, a stonemason uncovers a perfectly preserved body dressed in the robes of a Dominican friar, bricked up in a wall in the crumbling Black Friars monastery. Ill-informed rumours and speculation abound, but Seeker instantly recognises the dead man. What he must discover is why he met such a hideous end, and what his connection was to the children who have started to disappear from around the city. Unravelling these mysteries is challenging enough, and made still harder by the activities of dissenters at home, Royalist plotters abroad and other individuals who are not what they seem...

Author Biography

S.G. MacLean has a PhD in history from Aberdeen University, specializing in sixteenth and seventeenth century Scottish history. She lives in Conon Bridge, Scotland with her husband and four children. She has written four highly acclaimed historical thrillers set in Scotland, The Redemption of Alexander Seaton, A Game of Sorrows, Crucible and The Devil's Recruit. Her latest series of historical thrillers is set in Oliver Cromwell's London. The first book in the series, The Seeker, won the CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger and the second, The Black Friar, was shortlisted for the same award.