In the last decade of Elizabeth I's reign, Nick Revill, an aspiring young actor, comes to London seeking fame and fortune. Once there he gains employment with the Chamberlain's Men. Thrown out of his digs over an unfortunate accident, Nick is offered lodgings at a wealthy Thameside mansion by a black-clad youth whose father has just died and whose mother has remarried his uncle. Pondering on the similarities between the young man's story and William Shakespeare's newest tragedy, Hamlet, Nick is charged with the task of finding out whether foul play was involved in the death of the old man and hasty remarriage of his young, lusty wife. As Nick works his way ever closer to the truth, the finger of suspicion begins to point to his enigmatic employer Mr William Shakespeare - actor, author and shareholder in the Chamberlain's Men...

Third in the entertaining adventures of Shakespearean actor and sleuth, Nick Revill It is midsummer in the year 1601. Nick Revill and his fellow actors of the company known as the Chamberlain's Men are journeying across the Wiltshire Downs for a country-house presentation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. It should be a pleasant well-paid jaunt to celebrate a noble marriage, but instead the players find themselves in the midst of a tense family atmosphere, somehow linked to the presence of the household's sinister steward. Very soon Nick finds that the Dream has turned into a nightmare, where murder appears commonplace, and before too long he must fight to save his own life against the ancient backdrop of Stonehenge...

ReviewTom and Helen Ansell, introduced (but not yet married) in 2008's The Salisbury Manuscript, return for a second round of Victorian mystery-solving. Tom, a lawyer, is assigned the job of obtaining an affidavit from Major Marmont, a stage magician, concerning the provenance of a valuable dagger; at the same time, Helen's mother asks Helen to find out whether Eustace Flask, a so-called psychic, is the real deal or a charlatan. Soon Tom and Helen are investigating the death of another psychic, who died under suspicious circumstances, and Helen finds that she has become a murder suspect. Rich in character and period detail (but without being too pushy about it), the novel, like its predecessor, offers a definite change of pace from the author's Elizabethan-era Nick Revill mysteries, but readers of that series will note the same frisky spirit and playful writing style here. Further stories featuring the Ansells would be most welcome... --Booklist, May 1, 2011The fascination with magicians, conjurers, and mediums in Victorian England brings newlyweds Tom and Helen Ansell to their second case (after The Salisbury Manuscripts). Helen's spinster aunt is about to fall victim to a medium's scam, and Helen's mother asks Helen to go check on the situation in Durham. Concurrently, Tom's law firm wants him to take a disposition from a client, a magician in possession of an exotic item from India; the magician just happens to be in Durham as well. The couple find plenty of intrigue and a bit of danger in this puzzler that shows us how the magic's done but demonstrates that solving a murder goes beyond hidden doors and sleight of hand. VERDICT This second entry in Gooden's historical series is cleverly plotted and nicely structured in five acts. The cathedral plays a minor role, but this reviewer looks forward to seeing where the couple is headed next. -- Library Journal, May 1, 2011

On a foggy morning in 1602, a boyhood friend of Nick Revill arrives in London. When Peter Agate announces that he wants to try his hand at acting, what can Nick do but offer him a part with his own company, the Chamberlain's Men, who are putting on a private production of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida for the lawyers of Middle Temple. Yet within days Peter Agate is dead, stabbed to death at Nick's lodgings - the beginning of a sequence of violent deaths, each somehow implicating Nick himself. To avoid the hangman's noose Nick must discover the real murderer among a cast of suspects, including an aristocratic brother and sister, a troublemaker from a rival company and an ex-actor who once saw the Devil himself on stage...

Third in the highly-acclaimed nineteenth-century 'Cathedral' mystery series When Mr Lye, an elderly partner at Tom Ansell's law firm, drops dead at his desk, Tom is dispatched to Ely to search for Mr Lye's will at Phoenix House, the home of his brother, Ernest. At the same time, Tom's wife Helen has been commissioned by New Moon magazine to write a piece on a town with 'inner beauty' - and what better place than Ely? But shortly after they arrive at Phoenix House, their host is arrested for murder -; and Tom and Helen find themselves at the centre of an ever-deepening mystery.

London, 1601, and the atmosphere is tense. Aspiring actor Nick Revill finds himself in a compromising situation where he is forced to act as government spy and keep watch over his won company. Nick has a privileged yet dangerous role to play, but his secret work earns him enemies.

It's the summer of 1604 and the Spanish are in London. Many years after the ill-fated Armada, they are negotiating a peace treaty with the English. Nick Revill's acting company is given a ceremonial role at the celebrations. But not everybody welcomes this outbreak of peace. In the shifting world of the court there are factions. In the Tower of London sits that implacable enemy of the Spanish, Sir Walter Raleigh, and he has friends on the outside who may try to sabotage the negotiations. Nick, meanwhile, is trying to get on with his playing. Invited by Shakespeare's rival, Ben Jonson, to take part in a masque at Somerset House where the Spanish are lodged, Nick is caught up in a conspiracy. During a rehearsal the courtier Sir Philip Blake dies an apparently accidental death when he tumbles from a 'Deus ex machina' chair which is lowering him to the stage. But this is only the first of a series of suspicious deaths, and Nick must look for the murderer among those around him. And...

When the Black Death strikes London, all the theatres are closed down by order of the Privy Council. The Chamberlain's Men, the theatre company Nick Revill is part of, takes up an invitation to play in Oxford. However, it seems that the plague has followed them - but not all deaths are as they seem.