TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF MURDER!!!! Iddo the Samaritan finds a severed head in a barrel of fish. A stammerer tries to save the life of the Emperor Charlemagne. William the Conqueror stares death in the face. Gerald of Wales solves a crime with the help of a shoulder blade of a ram. Nicholas Bracewell encounters murder on the high seas. A deadly assassin stalks a Victorian politician. A mild-mannered author is driven to an act of slaughter. Someone steals the statue of Nelson from the top of his column in Trafalgar Square. A violinist plots the death of a female musician. Friends fall out on a boat trip to France and one of them disappears overboard.

Edward Marston's mystery stories cover two thousand years of history yet they all have an eerie topicality. What does vary is the mode of detection. While a Samaritan in the Holy Land has to rely on instinct to catch a villain, the Scotland Yard detectives who hunt for the missing Lord Nelson can call on all the resources of modern technology. Horror and humor walk hand in hand in these yarns. Crimes of all kinds are woven into them but the abiding theme is murder - of a person, of a hope, of a reputation.

The Guardian wrote: "Consummate storytelling, a love of period and astute characterisation and plotting are the hallmarks of all Marston's books."