One by one, law students in the Inns of Court are killing themselves -- or so it seems to all but County Constable Matthew Stock. Matthew knows a murder when he sees it, and soon he's in pursuit of a ghostly killer who is not above trying his skills on Matthew himself. Meanwhile, Matthew's wife, Joan, follows her nose through the brawling, bawdy streets of Elizabethan London, looking for clues to help her husband outwit his murderous nemesis. But who will help her? **

Three innocents stand accused of sorcery and soon no one is safe… The town of Chelmsford was going mad with the frenzy of witch hunting. Neighbors accused one another with no cause, hysterical at the sudden death of a townsman and sightings of an apparition of a dead young woman. But Constable Matthew Stock would have none of it. Sensible, down to earth, and aided by the quiet intelligence of his good wife Joan, he doubted the accusers, but was helpless to save the accused. As the village became inflamed with terror, Matthew cleverly began to piece together a deceptively simple tale of innocence and guilt, heaven and hell, to reveal the long-hidden secrets behind the strange bewitchings…

The first book in the Joan and Matthew Stock mystery series set in Elizabethan England.They were a small player’s troupe, come to perform for a lord and his lady…And none of the rag-tag group shone more than the young players’ boy, with his flaxen hair and fine features. Indeed, he had won a scullery maid’s heart, and it was she, at cock’s crow, who went searching for him in the stables where he slept. But, alas, she found him dead—murdered in a most gruesome way. And now Constable Matthew Stock must search high and low, from a Lord’s castle to a disreputable inn, to find the person who dealt such an ungodly blow…

Elizabeth the Great will go to the fair…And a wondrous fair it is, drawing people from all over the land, among them the goodly couple, the Stocks. But their initial pleasure in the hurly-burly is tempered by the murder of a puppeteer on the road to the fairgrounds. An odd murder indeed, for the killer has left strange marks on the dead man’s forehead…

One by one, law students in the Inns of Court are killing themselves -- or so it seems to all but County Constable Matthew Stock. Matthew knows a murder when he sees it, and soon he's in pursuit of a ghostly killer who is not above trying his skills on Matthew himself. Meanwhile, Matthew's wife, Joan, follows her nose through the brawling, bawdy streets of Elizabethan London, looking for clues to help her husband outwit his murderous nemesis. But who will help her?

"Adroitly blends British history with a wonderful cast of actual and fictional characters. And the Stocks, are, always, enterprising detectives and superb guides to 16th century London."ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCHAs Queen Elizabeth lays dying, there is a plot afoot to unseat her principle advisor, Sir Robert Cecil . Merchant-constable Matthew Stock's considers Sir Robert his master, and, determined to help his lord in any way, Matthew is lured to a murder scene--and the bloody knife next to the body turns out to be his own. Only the industrious and clever Joan Stock, Matthew's steadfast wife, is a liberty to save his neck from the gallows, that is until the plotters turn toward her--aiming to rid themselves of the one body who stands in their way....

In 1576, Sir Martin Frobisher made the first of three voyages in search of a Northwest Passage. He got as far as Canada, and brought back to England two "proofs" that he had reached Cathay: some black stones that he claimed contained gold, and an Eskimo. Using this factual basis, Leonard Tourney takes his Elizabethan mystery series to a higher level with a compelling story about the nature of blind prejudice. Frobisher's Eskimo is given the name "Adam Nemo" and is set down on the estate of a wealthy landowner as a servant. He learns the strange language of his captors, he performs his duties more than conscientiously, and he keeps to himself. And then everything changes. Visiting his only friend on a nearby farm, a deaf and mute youth named Nicholas, he finds the boy cowering in a corner and everywhere signs of a bloody massacre. When the townsmen whom Adam summons arrive, they discover the mutilated bodies of the farmer, his wife, and their two youngest children in the well. Merchant Matthew Stock tries to counteract the town's growing hysteria, which fastens itself upon those they consider strangers - the "savage" and the "idiot." Matthew and his forthright wife Joan are firmly convinced of the pair's innocence, and they are determined that the rule of law shall prevail. There is more than one hair-raising episode, and a breathless pursuit through a snowstorm, before Joan Stock finally unearths the evidence to identify the real murderer.