Book 1st ed. Fine in dust jacket. Pages tanned. On October 17th 1678 the body

Book 1st ed. Fine in dust jacket. Pages tanned. On October 17th 1678 the body of a London magistrate was found at the foot of Primrose Hill. Was he murdered by Catholic plotters? Or by Protestants, to keep belief in the Plot alive? Had the underworld taken its revenge? Or was it suicide? The death of Mr Justice Godfrey has remained an unsolved mystery for more than three hundred years. The characters portrayed here are real people. Charles II is seen at his most devious in politics and relaxing in the arms of the most seductive of his mistresses. Mr Pepys is seen fighting for the navy and his life. Here are the rival dukes of York and Monmouth, the little Earl of Shaftesbury and the giant Earl of Pembroke, together with humble clerks and maidservants, and sundry unsavoury persons, not least among them Titus Oates. The trials too are real. This was an age when the law was far removed from justice. Informing was lucrative, and perjury was rife. Those charged with plotting treason or murdering a magistrate had little hope of acquittal, however innocent. Through the detective work of its hero, young Sam Atkins, this historical whodunit offers a solution to the questions asked at the time and still asked today: How and where did Mr Justice Godfrey die? Who really killed him, and why? John Dickson Carr tried his hand with this in "The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey"