Searcher of the Dead: A Bess Ellyott Mystery

About Searcher of the Dead: A Bess Ellyott Mystery

Join widowed herbalist Bess Ellyott as she navigates the dark side of Elizabethan London in this kick-off to a stunningly atmospheric historical mystery series. “A treat for fans of all things Tudor. This is the book Agatha Christie would have written if she had worn a farthingale.

” —Deanna Raybourn, New York Times bestselling author of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries Living amid the cultural flowering, religious strife, and political storms of Tudor England, Bess Ellyott is an herbalist, a widow, and a hunted woman. She fled London after her husband was brutally murdered, but the bucolic town in the countryside where she lands will offer her no solace. She still doesn’t know who killed her husband, but she knows one thing: The murderer is still out there.

This becomes all too clear when Bess’s brother-in-law, a prosperous merchant, is himself found dead—dangling from a tree, an apparent suicide. But Bess doesn’t believe that for a moment, and nor do her neighbors. Competition is cutthroat in the 17th century, and word around the town holds that the dead man is a victim of rival merchants scheming to corner the wool market.

Bess, though, is convinced the killer is out to destroy her family.