Summoned to attend the Spanish queen, English surgeon Thomas Berrington discovers Sevilla in turmoil. Plague ravages the city, and the Inquisition takes both innocent and guilty alike. Among this chaos Thomas must investigate a series of killings. Two victims are taken together, but for what reason?

Summer, 1643: England is at war with itself. King Charles I has fled London, his negotiations with Parliament in tatters. The country is consumed by bloodshed. For Thomas Hill, a man of letters quietly running a bookshop in the rural town of Romsey, knowledge of the war is limited to the rumours that reach the local inn. When a stranger knocks on his door one night and informs him that the king's cryptographer has died, everything changes.

London, 1667. In the court of Charles II, it's a dangerous time to be alive. A wrong move could lead to disgrace, exile or death. The discovery of a murder at Clarendon House, the palatial home of one of the highest courtiers in the land, could have catastrophic consequences. James Marwood, a traitor's son, is ordered to cover up the murder. But the dead man is Edward Alderley, the cousin of one of Marwood's acquaintances. Cat Lovett had every reason to want her cousin dead. Since his murder, she has vanished, and all the evidence points to her as the killer.

Lady Philippa, the wife of Sir Aymer, a knight of the realm, disappears while travelling from her husband’s manor to Bampton. She and her maid are traveling in an enclosed wagon, while her husband, his grooms, and a squire are mounted. When the party arrives at Bampton Castle neither the lady nor her maid are within the enclosed wagon: They have simply vanished. As the disappearance may have happened while the travelers were on Lord Gilbert’s lands, his surgeon and bailiff, Hugh de Singleton, is assigned to discover what has happened to the lady. Has she been taken or has she fled?

Late one afternoon in April in the Year of Our Risen Lord 1468 a solitary traveller was to be observed picking his way on horseback across the wild moorland of that ancient region of south-western England known since Saxon times as Wessex.... 

When Valens, a junior officer in the Roman Army, joins a crack squad of soldiers on a dangerous mission, little does he know what's in store for him. Tasked with rescuing the young Prince Sasan, who has been imprisoned in the impenetrable Castle of Silence, the troops set out across Mesopotamia and into the mountains south of the Caspian Sea. Deep in hostile territory, inexperienced Valens finds himself in charge. And as one by one his soldiers die or disappear, he begins to suspect that there is a traitor in their midst and that the rescue is fast becoming a suicide mission. 

When the novice Emma Thorgold goes missing from Godstow Abbey in the summer of 1353, the hunt is on throughout the Oxfordshire countryside. Bookseller Nicholas Elyot and scholar Jordain Brinkylsworth are anxious to help the girl, but her stepfather has other intentions. Why is he so determined to shut her away for life? Or worse? And will she be found unharmed?

Madame Katerina, Detective 'Nine Nails' McGray's most trusted clairvoyant, hosts a séance for three of Edinburgh's wealthiest families.The following morning everyone is found dead, with Madame Katerina being the only survivor. When questioned she alleges a tormented spirit killed the families for revenge. McGray, even though he believes her, must find a rational explanation that holds up in court, else Katerina will be sentenced to death.

In 1360 Edward III issues a call to arms, as sporadic attacks by the French threaten to turn into a full-blown invasion. In Cambridge, fear of the enemy is magnified by the belief that foreign agents are lurking in the area. Tension runs ever higher as rumours and ignorance fan the flames of suspicion amid preparations for war. And then the first murder occurs - of a French scholar living in the town.

Spring, 1648. When Thomas Hill, a bookseller living in rural Hampshire, publishes a political pamphlet, he has little idea of the trouble that will follow. He is quickly arrested, forced on a boat to Barbados and condemned to life as a slave to two of the island’s most notoriously violent brothers. In England war has erupted again, with London under threat of attack.