The date is September 1538. Having been left a widower by Jane Seymour's death, Henry VIII is looking for a new wife. Cromwell has put forward the Princess of Cleves, a marriage which will bring Henry an alliance with the Protestant princes of Europe. Meanwhile near to Nicholas Peverell's Sussex estate, the body of a young girl is found washed up on the shore. At first it is feared she has taken her own life but, in his capacity as justice of the peace, Nicholas soon comes to the conclusio...

Faced with kidnap, murder and drug-smuggling, Venerables and McBride put their personal differences aside to work on the case. And they're playing for the highest stakes of all - the life of a child.

Nicholas Peverell is newly wed to his sweetheart Jane and enjoying married life with her at his manor house at Dean Peverell. One winter evening they invite the bishop of Marchester to dinner. The bishop used to be the prior of Dean Peverell but since King Henry's dissolution of the monastries he now rules the cathedral dignitaries. Next day, on a hunting party in the salt marshes near Pelham Maris, Nicholas meets the bishop again in very different circumstances. He comes across his murder...

Chief Inspector Douglas MacBride is flattered to be asked to join a shooting party given by the wealthy McKenzies at their home. But his holiday comes to an abrupt end when Ian McKenzie is found hanged in his bedroom, dressed in women's clothing.

Nicholas Peverell has returned to his manor house in Sussex after visiting King Henry VIII at court to find that his loyal steward has been murdered - strangled and thrown from the manor house tower. Nicholas immediately decides to launch an investigation.He also has to deal with the unrest among the monks at his priory - King Henry is trying to reform the church and the plight of the monks is as yet unsure - could they somehow be involved?Nicholas' problems are further exa...

Peaceful and isolated, and for part of each day cut off from the Northumbrian mainland by the tides, Lindisfarne seems untouched by the 20th century. But when the body of barmaid Ginny Adams, raped and battered, is discovered in a shallow grave, it is clear that evil has come to Holy Island.

When Nicholas Peverell is urgently summoned to court by a messenger from King Henry VIII, he suspects that the King will want him to investigate a crime; for Nicholas, lord of the Manor of Dean Peverell in Sussex, has done so before. Reluctant to leave home though he is, he will at least see his beloved Jane Warrener, now a lady in waiting to Queen Jane, once more. But the crime, the murder of a wool merchant in the back streets of Portsmouth, hardly seems to warrant such attention - after...