Fire: A John Grey Historical Mystery

1666.

London has been destroyed by fire and its citizens are looking for somebody, preferable foreign, to blame. Only the royal Court, with its strong Catholic sympathies, is trying to dampen down the post-conflaguration hysteria. Then, inconveniently, a Frenchman admits to having started it together with an accomplice, whom he says he has subsequently killed.

John Grey is tasked by Secretary of State, Lord Arlington, with proving conclusively that the self-confessed fire-raiser is lying. Though Grey agrees with Arlington that the Frenchman must be mad, he is increasingly perplexed at how much he knows. And a body has been discovered that appears in every way to match the description of the dead accomplice.

Grey's investigations take him and his companion, Lady Pole, into the dangerous and still smoking ruins of the old City. And somebody out there - somebody at the very centre of power in England - would prefer it if they didn't live long enough to conclude their work...

L. C. Tyler was born in Essex and educated at Jesus College Oxford and City University. His comic crime series featuring author-and-agent duo Ethelred Tressider and Elsie Thirkettle has twice been nominated for Edgar Allan Poe Awards and he won the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award with Herring in the Library. His latest crime series is set in the seventeenth century and features lawyer John Grey.

He has lived and worked all over the world, but has more recently been based in London and Sussex.

To find out more about L. C. Tyler visit www.lctyler.com or follow him on twitter @lenctyler.

About L.C. Tyler