Shores of darkness

One summer day in 1706, Martin Millet came home from the war in Flanders to find his Aunt Effie murdered.

Instead of settling on a small estate as he had hoped, Martin must embark on a seven-year odyssey to solve the crime.

It will lead him, his aunt's servant Bratchet, and a mysterious Highlander from London's slums back to the battlefields of Flanders, from the court of the Sun King to the perils of piracy on the high seas and the horror of Jamaica's sugar plantations.

Yet did they but know it, the answer to Effie's death lies closer to home - in the apartments of Queen Anne, dying with no Protestant heir in view.