Cragg and Fidelis

4 total works

A Dark Anatomy

by Robin Blake

Published 4 March 2011

The year is 1740. George II is on the throne but England’s remoter provinces remain largely a law unto themselves. In Lancashire a grim discovery has been made: a Squire’s wife, Dolores Brockletower, lies in the woods above her home, Garlick Hall, her throat brutally slashed.

Called to the scene, Coroner Titus Cragg finds the Brockletower household awash with rumour and suspicion. He enlists the help of his astute young friend, doctor Luke Fidelis, to throw light on the case.

But this is a world in which forensic science is in its infancy, and policing hardly exists. Embarking on their first gripping investigation, Cragg and Fidelis are faced with the superstition of witnesses, obstruction by local officials, and denunciations from the Squire himself.

`This is rollicking stuff. Cragg and Fidelis are an engaging duo’ Financial Times

`Cragg and Fidelis make a fine pair of detectives’ Literary Review

Dark Waters

by Robin Blake

Published 7 June 2012

Preston, 1741.

The drowning of drunken publican Antony Egan is no surprise - even if it comes as an unpleasant shock to coroner Titus Cragg, whose wife was the old man's niece. But he does his duty to the letter, and the inquest's verdict is accidental death. Meanwhile the town is agog with rumour and faction, as the General Election is only a week away and the two local seats are to be contested by four rival candidates.

But Cragg's close friend, Dr Luke Fidelis, finds evidence to cast doubt on the events leading to Egan's demise. Soon suspicions are further roused when a well-to-do farmer collapses and it appears he was in town on political business. Is there a conspiracy afoot? The Mayor and Council have their own way of imposing order, but Cragg is determined not to be swayed by their pressure. With the help of Fidelis's scientific ingenuity the true criminals are brought to light . . .

Skin and Bone

by Robin Blake

Published 4 February 2016

1743, and the tanners of Preston are a pariah community, plying their unwholesome trade beside a stretch of riverside marsh where many Prestonians by ancient right graze their livestock. When the body of a newborn child is found in one of their tanning pits, Cragg's enquiry falls foul of a cabal of merchants, dead set on modernising the town's economy and regarding the despised tanners - and Cragg's apparent championship of them - as obstacles to their plan. The murder of a baby is just the evidence they need to get rid of the tanners once and for all. But the inquest into the baby's death is disrupted when the inn in which it is being held mysteriously burns down. Then Cragg himself faces a charge of lewdness, jeopardising his whole future as a coroner. But the fates have not finished playing with him just yet. The sudden and suspicious death of a very prominent person may just, with the help of Fidelis's sharp forensic skills, bring about Cragg's redemption...

The Scrivener

by Robin Blake

Published 5 March 2015

The year is 1742, and the people of Preston are looking forward to their ancient once-every-twenty-years festival of merriment and excess, the Preston Guild. But the prospect darkens as the town plunges into a financial crisis caused by the death of pawnbroker and would-be banker Philip Pimbo, apparently shot behind the locked door of his office. Is it suicide? Coroner Titus Cragg suspects so, but Dr Luke Fidelis disagrees. To untangle the truth Cragg must dig out the secrets of Pimbo's personal life, learn the grim facts of the African slave trade, search for a missing Civil War treasure and deal with the machinations of his old enemy Ephraim Grimshaw, now the town's mayor. Outwardly mild-mannered as ever, but passionate for justice, Cragg relies once again on the help and advice of his analytical friend Fidelis, his astute wife Elizabeth and the contents of a well-stocked library. As in his previous Cragg and Fidelis stories, Robin Blake brings a vivid cast of characters to the page in this third historical mystery about the dramas that pulse below the surface of life in a provincial Georgian town. Praise for Robin Blake: This is rollicking stuff.
Financial Times An impressive whodunit. Publishers Weekly Fascinating ...Blake's knowledge of an eighteenth century backwater just shaking off medieval superstitions is deep and engaging. Booklist (starred review)