Alms for Oblivion

Another clever criminal plunge into historyGuardian

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 Chamberlains Men, who are putting on a private production of Shakespeares Troilus and Cressida for the lawyers of Middle Temple.

Yet within days Peter Agate is dead, stabbed to death at Nicks lodgings - the beginning of a sequence of violent deaths, each somehow implicating Nick himself. To avoid the hangmans 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...

The fourth historical murder mystery in the Nick Revill series, set in the bustling theatrical world of William Shakespeare.

Praise for Philip Gooden:

Highly entertainingSunday Times

The witty narrative, laced with puns and word play so popular in this period, makes this an enjoyable racy taleSunday Telegraph

The book has much in common with the film Shakespeare in Love - full of colourful characters . . . but the book has an underlying darknessCrime Time

Historical mystery fans are in for a treatPublishers Weekly