Death in St James's Park

Five years after Charles II's triumphant return to London there is growing mistrust of his extravagant court and talk of corruption among his officials. Rumours of an imminent invasion by the Dutch, the return of the cuckolded husband of the King's mistress, and the ever-present threat of plots to either restore the rule of Papacy or Puritanism fill the coffee house with more steam and stench than rises from their kitchens.

When a cart laden with gunpowder explodes outside the General Letter Office, it is immediately clear that such an act is more than an expression of outrage at the inefficiency of the postal service. As intelligence officer to the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Chaloner cannot understand why a man of known incompetence is put in charge of investigating the attack, while he is diverted to make inquiries about the poisoning of birds in St James's Park. He becomes even more suspicious of his employer's motives when he discovers that the witnesses he needs to interview have close links to the General Letter Office, where activities are more firmly centred on intercepting people's mail than delivering it. Then human rather than avian victims are poisoned, and Chaloner knows he has to ignore his master's instructions and use his own considerable wits to defeat an enemy whose deadly tentacles reach into the very heart of the government: an enemy who has the power and expertise to destroy anyone who stands in the way…