Books in the The Blake and Avery Mystery Series series

For lovers of Sherlock, Shardlake and Ripper Street. A hugely enjoyable action-packed Victorian thriller with a great detective double act.'Delicious Stuff.' Financial TimesPublished in ebook as The Infidel Stain. London, 1841. Mr Jeremiah Blake and Captain William Avery, recently returned from India, are invited by Viscount Allington to examine the particulars of a grisly pair of murders. Two printers from the seditious gutter presses have been brutally dispatched in distinct but similar circumstances. Fearing the deaths will stoke the fires of Chartism sweeping the capital, Allington hopes Blake and Avery's determination to uncover the truth will solve these crimes and help restore civic order. But there are others who seem equally determined that the pair shall fail . . .

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of M.J. Carters The Strangler Vine, read by the actor Sam Dastor. India. 1837. William Avery, a fresh young officer in the East India Company, arrives in Calcutta expecting to be seduced by its ancient traditions. Nine months later he hasnt learnt a word of Hindoostani, is in terrible debt, and longs to return home before the cholera epidemic finishes him off. A few months earlier, so rumour has it, the infamous and disgraced poet Xavier Mountstuart leaves Calcutta in order to track down the last of the remaining Thugs, a sinister secret fraternity notorious for strangling thousands of travellers. But after reaching the kingdom of Jubbulpore, Mountstuart mysteriously disappears. Then the Company leads Avery to Jeremiah Blake, an unruly ex-Captain who has embraced native life. Their mission? To cover 700 miles of treacherous road in three weeks and find Mountstuart. A more unlikely duo couldnt be imagined, but they must bury their differences if they wish to succeed - for all is not as it seems, and at the rotten heart of everything lies the secret of the macabre Thugs...