Books by Mary Lawrence

In Mary Lawrence's fifth Bianca Goddard mystery set during the final years of Henry VIII's reign, the alchemist's daughter uses her skills to aid the living and helps seek justice for the dead...While her husband fights the Scots for King Henry VIII, Bianca Goddard earns her coin by concocting medicines that offer relief to London's sick. Some unfortunates, however, are beyond any remedies she can provide--like the boy discovered hanging from a church dripstone. Examining the body, Bianca finds a rosary twined around the child's neck. A week later, another boy is found dead at a different church. When Fisk, Bianca's impish acquaintance goes missing, she fears he may become the third victim...There are many villains who would prey on wayward, penniless boys. But Bianca suspects the killings are not brutal acts of impulse, but something far more calculated. In her room of Medicinals and Physickes, she examines the sole piece of evidence: a sweet-smelling, dark-stained cloth. If Bianca can unravel its secret, reputations and lives will be saved. But the expected hour of the next murder is approaching, and a single misstep may mean another boy is lost forever...

A dangerous element discovered by Bianca Goddard's father falls into the wrong hands . . . leading to a chain of multiple murders. Spring 1544: Now that she is with child, Bianca is more determined than ever to distance herself from her unstable father. Desperate to win back the favor of King Henry VIII, disgraced alchemist Albern Goddard plans to reveal a powerful new element he's discovered-one with deadly potential. But when the substance is stolen, he is panicked and expects his daughter to help. Soon after, a woman's body is found behind the Dim Dragon Inn, an eerie green vapor rising from her breathless mouth. To her grave concern, Bianca has reason to suspect her own mother may be involved in the theft and the murder. As her husband John is conscripted into King Henry's army to subdue Scottish resistance, Bianca must navigate a twisted and treacherous path among alchemists, apothecaries, chandlers, and scoundrels-to find out who among them is willing to kill to possess the element known as lapis mortem, the stone of death . . . Praise for Death at St. Vedast "Full of period details, Lawrence's latest series outing captures Tudor London in all its colorful splendor. A solid choice for devotees of Karen Harper's Elizabethan mysteries." -Library Journal