A Masterpiece of Corruption

by L.C. Tyler

Overview

John Grey, a newly minted lawyer in Cromwell's England is back in this follow-up to A Cruel Necessity. This time around, a mis-delivered letter has left Grey with more information about a murderous plot than it’s entirely safe to know. Can Grey prevent the murder' And can he keep his mouth shut long enough to save his own skin'

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631941399
Publisher:	Felony & Mayhem Press
Publication date:	11/06/2018
Series:	John Grey , #2
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.45(w) x 8.08(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

LC (Len) Tyler is a British writer best known for the "Ethelred & Elsie" series, for which he has received two Edgar nominations and the UK's Last Laugh award for best humorous mystery of the year. He lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

08/13/2018
Tyler cleverly marries plot and period in his sequel to A Cruel Necessity set during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. In December 1657, English lawyer John Grey receives a letter from the Sealed Knot, a group of royalists who have been plotting for six years to return Charles II to the throne, inviting him to a meeting at London’s Gray’s Inn. At the meeting, Grey learns that the missive was actually meant for his father, who has been living in Brussels, but in order to leave the gathering with his life, Grey plays along with the conspirators. When they make it clear that they are plotting to kill Oliver Cromwell, Grey agrees to carry out the assassination himself. As soon as he can, Grey reports the conspiracy to John Thurloe, Cromwell’s spymaster and Grey’s former employer, who requests that he act as a double agent in order to thwart the planned attack and identify the Sealed Knot’s other man inside Cromwell’s inner circle. Tyler’s judicious use of dry humor enhances a page-turning and plausible story line. Agent: David Headley, DHH Literary Agency (U.K.). (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

The year is 1657, and a case of mistaken identity results in Grey, who has republican sympathies, finding himself in the middle of a plot by the Sealed Knot, a secret royalist association, to assassinate Oliver Cromwell in order that Charles Stuart may return from exile to take his place on the throne. Forced into the role of double agent, caught up in a dizzying whirl of plot and counterplot and anxious to save his own skin, Grey, the son of a royalist, begins to question exactly where his own loyalties lie. Grey is a likable, dryly humorous protagonist, and Tyler, who uses a mixture of real and invented characters, has created a credible, and credibly bamboozling, atmosphere of paranoia as the two factions are increasingly riven by internal strife, with lofty ideals giving way to expediency.

The Guardian, February 2016 - Laura Wilson