Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey
Diary of Bedlam (Working Title)
Coming in 2014 from Carina Press!
On 12 October 1678, a popular London magistrate named Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey left his home in Westminster and never returned. Five days later, two local tradesmen found his slain body in a drainage ditch at the base of Primrose Hill, a London suburb. To this day the murder remains unsolved. Diary of Bedlam is based upon these events and their aftermath.
Lady Isabel Wilde, a former English spy and occasional favorite in King Charles II’s bedchamber, has a secret: she makes her living disguised as Mistress Ruby, a fortuneteller who caters to London’s elite. Charlatans, rogues, villains, and swindlers lurk in every corner of the city, and Isabel concedes she is one of them. But hard experience has taught her that women have few enough advantages in this world, and her conscience does not often bother her.
Everything changes when Sir Edmund Godfrey, a popular London magistrate, seeks Mistress Ruby’s counsel and reveals his accidental involvement in a covert plot to murder the King. Shortly after his visit, her diary, the sole record of her illicit activities as a soothsayer, is stolen, and Isabel must locate it before anyone connects her to Mistress Ruby. When Sir Edmund’s corpse is discovered a few days later, Isabel suspects whoever committed the murder also has her diary.Unwilling to trust the investigation to a royal court infamous for its schemes and intrigues, she begins her own inquiry and learns that Sir Edmund’s murder is only a small part of a conspiracy that leads all the way to the throne. A series of increasingly violent threats against her and her loved ones convince Isabel that her business is not the only thing at stake and that she must find Sir Edmund Godfrey’s killer before she becomes the next victim.
