BEAR PIT

A companion to The Seeker code 93131. London in 1656. Oliver Cromwell is now a king in all but name. Three conspirators, an alliance of Royalists and disillusioned Parliamentarians, plan to assassinate him, paving the way back to the throne for Charles Stuart once and for all. But the Lord Protector's most feared agent Captain Damian Seeker is preoccupied by the horrifying discovery in an illegal gambling den of the body of a man ravaged by what is unmistakeably a bear, creatures not seen in the capital since bear baiting was banned. With Royalist-turned-Commonwealth spy Thomas Faithly tracking the bear, Seeker investigates his victim. The hunt for the killer leads from Kent's coffee house on Cornhill to a German clockmaker in Clerkenwell, to the desolate Lambeth Marshes where no one should venture at night. As the motivation behind the murder becomes clearer, Seeker realises just what and who he is up against. The Royalists in exile have sent to London their greatest fighter, a man who will stop at nothing to ensure the Restoration. 410pp, paperback.