Death At The Beggar’s Opera
By Deryn Lake
John Rawlings, the apothecary with a talent for detective work, and John Fielding, the phenomenal blind magistrate whose Runners formed London’s early police force, make a welcome return in this evocative Georgian mystery.
John Rawlings is among the beau monde enjoying a performance of ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ in Drury Lane when the leading actor – the notorious philanderer Jasper Harcross – dramatically falls to his death on stage. As Rawlings and the Blind Beak hunt for vital clues, they discover a hotbed of rivalry both on and off the stage which produces numerous suspects and questions.
As the search takes on a new intensity, John Rawlings soon finds himself on an intriguing trail of obsession that leads to the dark heart of a cold-blooded murder.
Deryn Lake started to write stories at the age of five, then graduated to novels but destroyed all her early work because, she says, it was hopeless. A chance meeting with one of the Getty family took her to Sutton Place and her first serious novel was born. Deryn was married to a journalist and writer, the late L. F. Lampitt, has two grown-up children, four beautiful and talented grandchildren, and one rather large cat. Deryn has lived near the famous battlefield of 1066 for the past 16 years where she enjoys her life as a woman about town. She is also the author of Fortune’s Soldier, Sutton Place, To Sleep No More, The King’s Women and Pour The Dark Wine.
