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The Readiness is All: A Tom Musgrave Omnibus
"The grimmer aspects of Elizabethan London come alive in Peter Tonkin's . . . Master of Defence series." Publishers Weekly
Peter Tonkin’s bestselling Elizabethan murder mystery novels The Point of Death, A Head for Murder, A Midwinter Murder and The Silent Murder featuring sleuth and sword master Tom Musgrave are collected together in a single volume.
The Point of Death
London, 1594. The opening night of ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
Mercutio is found murdered in the middle of the play - but it is real, not stage, blood that flows from his body.
Tom Musgrove, is hired by the theatre owners to solve the murder case as quickly and quietly as possible.
As Tom plunges into the mean streets of Elizabethan London he soon realises he has jumped blindly into a web of murderous intrigue, which has already claimed the lives of Kit Marlowe and Francis Walsingham.
A Head for Murder
London 1594.
Tom Musgrave rescues a beautiful girl from under the feet of a mob playing football on London Bridge.
But her breathless thanks are drowned by horrified screams. The football has vanished.
In its place, a severed head is rolling down into Southwark, into the jurisdiction of Tom's old friend, the Bishop's Bailiff Talbot Law.
The skull has fallen from the Great Stone Gateway, where the heads of recently executed traitors are displayed. But the decapitated victim was no traitor and her head, like her sex, is markedly different from the others up there.
Tom and Talbot begin their investigation with a search down-river. All too swiftly they discover a woman's headless body....But this body does not match the head.
A killer is at work. And no one knows where they will strike next.
A Midwinter Murder
Christmas 1594.
Tom is called away from the dress rehearsal of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' to receive terrible his brother John has been found dead, frozen with terror in the branches of a tree.
Rumour has it that the Barguest, a mythical monstrous hound, is loose on the Scottish Borders . . .
Tom rides north to investigate – only to find himself embroiled in a dark, deadly political conspiracy, where even his swordsmanship and logic may not help him…
The Silent Murder
London, 1595.
The Master of Defence Tom Musgrave rushes to the aid of a young messenger, the victim of a sudden, apparently unprovoked attack in the street outside his house.
In the dead boy’s possession Tom finds a bloodied letter intended for his eyes only.
And he manages to piece together a worrying message.
The missive contains a desperate cry for help from the beautiful Countess Cotehel, who is mute as a result of a terrible trauma.
Then a second body is found – belonging to another of the Countess’s servants.
Peter Tonkin’s bestselling Elizabethan murder mystery novels The Point of Death, A Head for Murder, A Midwinter Murder and The Silent Murder featuring sleuth and sword master Tom Musgrave are collected together in a single volume.
The Point of Death
London, 1594. The opening night of ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
Mercutio is found murdered in the middle of the play - but it is real, not stage, blood that flows from his body.
Tom Musgrove, is hired by the theatre owners to solve the murder case as quickly and quietly as possible.
As Tom plunges into the mean streets of Elizabethan London he soon realises he has jumped blindly into a web of murderous intrigue, which has already claimed the lives of Kit Marlowe and Francis Walsingham.
A Head for Murder
London 1594.
Tom Musgrave rescues a beautiful girl from under the feet of a mob playing football on London Bridge.
But her breathless thanks are drowned by horrified screams. The football has vanished.
In its place, a severed head is rolling down into Southwark, into the jurisdiction of Tom's old friend, the Bishop's Bailiff Talbot Law.
The skull has fallen from the Great Stone Gateway, where the heads of recently executed traitors are displayed. But the decapitated victim was no traitor and her head, like her sex, is markedly different from the others up there.
Tom and Talbot begin their investigation with a search down-river. All too swiftly they discover a woman's headless body....But this body does not match the head.
A killer is at work. And no one knows where they will strike next.
A Midwinter Murder
Christmas 1594.
Tom is called away from the dress rehearsal of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' to receive terrible his brother John has been found dead, frozen with terror in the branches of a tree.
Rumour has it that the Barguest, a mythical monstrous hound, is loose on the Scottish Borders . . .
Tom rides north to investigate – only to find himself embroiled in a dark, deadly political conspiracy, where even his swordsmanship and logic may not help him…
The Silent Murder
London, 1595.
The Master of Defence Tom Musgrave rushes to the aid of a young messenger, the victim of a sudden, apparently unprovoked attack in the street outside his house.
In the dead boy’s possession Tom finds a bloodied letter intended for his eyes only.
And he manages to piece together a worrying message.
The missive contains a desperate cry for help from the beautiful Countess Cotehel, who is mute as a result of a terrible trauma.
Then a second body is found – belonging to another of the Countess’s servants.
1109 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 25, 2018
41 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Peter Tonkin
91 books61 followersPeter Tonkin's first novel, KILLER, was published in 1978. His work has included the acclaimed "Mariner" series that have been critically compared with the best of Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley and Hammond Innes.
More recently he has been working on a series of detective thrillers with an Elizabethan background. This series, "The Master of Defense", has been characterised as 'James Bond meets Sherlock Holmes meets William Shakespeare'. Each story is a classic 'whodunit' with all the clues presented to the reader exactly as they are presented to the hero, Tom Musgrave. The Kirkus Review described them as having 'Elizabethan detail, rousing action sequences, sound detection...everything a fan of historical mysteries could hope for."
More recently he has been working on a series of detective thrillers with an Elizabethan background. This series, "The Master of Defense", has been characterised as 'James Bond meets Sherlock Holmes meets William Shakespeare'. Each story is a classic 'whodunit' with all the clues presented to the reader exactly as they are presented to the hero, Tom Musgrave. The Kirkus Review described them as having 'Elizabethan detail, rousing action sequences, sound detection...everything a fan of historical mysteries could hope for."
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 14, 2018
Found this series by accident when I was at a loose end and browsing Amazon. Talk about James Bond meets Sir Phillip Sydney; its a cracking series. Some of the injuries our hero receives and recovers from asks you to suspend belief but the tales are extremely interesting, especially to one familiar with the Tudor period and characters reasonably fleshed out (could do with a bit more meat). The plots are sufficiently convoluted so that you can't "see it coming" which I find extremely irritating. The writing is fluent and intelligent. I'm not giving any spoilers; see for yourselves and this is definitely one for my bookshelves.
Displaying 1 of 1 review