HAVOC, IN ITS THIRD YEAR

Bloomsbury, London, 2004, 4^th pr.  ISBN 0-7475-6441-8.  Trade soft cover, 244 pages including Acknowledgements.  Unread copy with small ding at lower front spine edge, touch of corner wear, price sticker on rear wrap.  ‘England in the 1630s – an unsettled country in turbulent times.  People are gripped by fear:  fear of crime, of foreign invasion, of Catholic conspiracies, of the vagrant poor.  In a town in northern England a group of Puritan reformers tightens its hold on the lives of the inhabitants.  John Brigge is the local coroner, a respected man … called to investigate an infanticide, Brigge finds himself drawn unwillingly into a vicious power struggle.  Katherine Shay, a fiery Irishwoman, stands accused of killing her baby.  The Puritan faction demands her immediate execution.  Brigge suspects their haste has little to do with justice.  What are they hiding?  Does he really want to know?’ (from rear wrap)