Elizabeth Redfern

In 1795 London, Jonathan Absey of the Home Office pursues dual investigations into French espionage in Britain and the still unsolved murder of his teenage daughter, a pursuit that leads to a bizarre society of astronomers called the Company of Titius whose quest for a long-lost star leads ever closer to his own probe. A first novel. Reprint.

The Music of the Spheres

London, the summer of 1795: a season of revolutionary fervour, scientific discovery and vicious murders. The British government is in disarray, unable to stem the flood of secrets to Paris; betrayals that doom her war efforts to failure. In rural Kensington a group of French emigr-s are pursuing a scientific dream, the discovery of a planet they call Selene. The group has fallen under the spell of a beautiful and amoral woman - Auguste de Montpellier who is at once their muse and dark angel. Meanwhile a killer lurks in the back streets of the capital: the victims are all prostitutes and have been paid in French Louis d'Or, the currency of France's spies. Jonathan Absey is a Home Office clerk whose official task is to smash the French spy ring. Privately however, he has become obsessed with the murders. These interests intersect when he finds himself drawn into the Montpellier circle, yet his pursuit for truth remains obscured through coded letters, opium and conspiracy. Absey must uncover the mystery before the summer dies; an invasion fleet is being prepared to set sail across the channel and the lives of those on board now rest on his discoveries.

5th November, 1609. It is four years to the day since Catholic conspirators tried to blow up James 1 and his Parliament with bloody consequences to themselves and their supporters. Ned Warriner is a known Catholic sympathizer, yet he has secretly returned to England to search for the woman he loves, Kate Revill. Another year of exile on the Continent without her is unthinkable. Yet, if Ned is discovered he faces execution.But fate has an even more curious twist in store for him. Within hours of disembarking in London he has stumbled upon a mysterious letter written by the Elizabthan magus John Dee to one of his acolytes. In it is the greatest secret of the world: instructions on how to transmute base material into gold. It is also a secret that people will kill for: whoever touches the letter or speaks of it will die. Its ownership will take Ned right to the corrupted heart of the plot-riven kingdom.

Elizabeth Redfern

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