The Bear Pit

'Could challenge CJ Sansom for dominion' Sunday Times

London, 1656: Captain Seeker is back in the city, on the trail of an assassin preparing to strike at the heart of Oliver Cromwell's Republic

The Commonwealth is balanced on a knife edge. Royalists and disillusioned former Parliamentarians have united against Oliver Cromwell, now a king in all but name. Three conspirators, representing these factions, plan to assassinate the Lord Protector, paving the way back to the throne for Charles Stuart once and for all.

Captain Damian Seeker, meanwhile, is preoccupied by the horrifying discovery in an illegal gambling den of the body of a man ravaged by what is unmistakably a bear. Yet the bears used for baiting were all shot when the sport was banned by Cromwell. So where did this fearsome creature come from, and why would someone use it for murder?

With Royalist-turned-Commonwealth-spy Thomas Faithly tracking the bear, Seeker investigates its victim. The trail leads from Kent's coffee house on Cornhill, to a German clockmaker in Clerkenwell, to the stews of Southwark, to the desolate Lambeth Marshes where no one should venture at night.

When the two threads of the investigation begin to join, Seeker realises just what - and who - he is up against. The Royalists in exile have sent to London their finest mind and greatest fighter, a man who will stop at nothing to ensure the Restoration. Has Seeker finally met his match?

“MacLean skilfully weaves together the disparate threads of her plot to create a gripping tale of crime and sedition in an unsettled city - Sunday Times on The Black Friar Excellent at conveying the insecurities and unsettling memories that bedevil Cromwell's dying Protectorate , the author brings a fresh perspective and gold-plated research to a period which has been unfairly eclipsed by the popularity of the Tudors - Daily Mail on The Black FriarMacLean's light touch portrait of a hard man with a softer core is what makes these books so memorable - The Times on The Black Friar A thrilling plot . . . MacLean's characters are subtle and convincing . . . could challenge C.J. Sansom for dominion of historical crime - Sunday Times on The SeekerThe best historical crime novel of the year - Sunday Express on The Seeker”

MacLean skilfully weaves together the disparate threads of her plot to create a gripping tale of crime and sedition in an unsettled city - Sunday Times on The Black Friar

Excellent at conveying the insecurities and unsettling memories that bedevil Cromwell's dying Protectorate, the author brings a fresh perspective and gold-plated research to a period which has been unfairly eclipsed by the popularity of the Tudors - Daily Mail on The Black Friar

MacLean's light touch portrait of a hard man with a softer core is what makes these books so memorable - The Times on The Black Friar

A thrilling plot . . . MacLean's characters are subtle and convincing . . . could challenge C.J. Sansom for dominion of historical crime - Sunday Times on The Seeker

The best historical crime novel of the year - Sunday Express on The Seeker

S.G. MacLean has a PhD in history from Aberdeen University. She is the author of two historical crime series - The Alexander Seaton series, set in seventeenth-century Scotland, and the Damian Seeker series, set in Oliver Cromwell's London, as well as the standalone Jacobite thriller, The Bookseller of Inverness. She has been shortlisted four times for the CWA Historical Dagger, winning it twice. S.G. MacLean lives in Conon Bridge, Scotland.

'Could challenge CJ Sansom for dominion' Sunday Times London , 1656: Captain Seeker is back in the city, on the trail of an assassin preparing to strike at the heart of Oliver Cromwell's Republic The Commonwealth is balanced on a knife edge. Royalists and disillusioned former Parliamentarians have united against Oliver Cromwell, now a king in all but name. Three conspirators, representing these factions, plan to assassinate the Lord Protector, paving the way back to the throne for Charles Stuart once and for all.Captain Damian Seeker, meanwhile, is preoccupied by the horrifying discovery in an illegal gambling den of the body of a man ravaged by what is unmistakably a bear. Yet the bears used for baiting were all shot when the sport was banned by Cromwell. So where did this fearsome creature come from, and why would someone use it for murder?With Royalist-turned-Commonwealth-spy Thomas Faithly tracking the bear, Seeker investigates its victim. The trail leads from Kent's coffee house on Cornhill, to a German clockmaker in Clerkenwell, to the stews of Southwark, to the desolate Lambeth Marshes where no one should venture at night.When the two threads of the investigation begin to join, Seeker realises just what - and who - he is up against. The Royalists in exile have sent to London their finest mind and greatest fighter, a man who will stop at nothing to ensure the Restoration. Has Seeker finally met his match?

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