Circle of shadows - Imogen Robertson

Death at the Carnival: riddle, ritual and murder

Shrove Tuesday, 1784. While the nobility dance at a masked ball, beautiful Lady Martesen is murdered. Daniel Clode is found by her body, his wrists slit and his memories nightmarish. What has he done? Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther race to the Duchy of Maulberg to save Daniel from the executioner's axe. There they find a capricious Duke on the point of marriage, a court consumed by luxury and intrigue, and a bitter enemy from the past. After another cruel death, they must discover the truth, no matter how horrific it is. Does the answer lie with the alchemist seeking the elixir of life? With the automata makers in the Duke's fake rural idyll? Or in the poisonous lies oozing around the court as the elite strive for power?

Imogen Robertson grew up in Darlington, studied Russian and German at Cambridge, and now lives in London. She directed for TV, film and radio before becoming a full-time author, and also writes and reviews poetry. Imogen won the Telegraph's 'First thousand words of a novel competition' in 2007 with the opening of Instruments of Darkness, her first novel.

Want to know more? Visit www.imogenrobertson.com.

'Chillingly memorable...an extraordinary thriller'
Tess Gerritsen

This series, launched after Robertson won a Telegraph writing competition, continues to excel'
Daily Telegraph