The Pale Companion

''Highly entertaining'' Sunday Times

Midsummer 1601. Nick Revill and his fellow actors in the Chamberlain''s Men are journeying across the Wiltshire Downs for a country-house presentation of Shakespeare''s A Midsummer Night''s Dream.

It should be a pleasant, well-paid jaunt to celebrate a noble marriage, but when the actors arrive at their destination, Instede House, they enter a tense atmosphere. Lord Elcombe is pushing his older son into a marriage that the son seems set against, while in the nearby woods a wild man called Robin talks in riddles of long-hidden family secrets. In another quarter of the great estate lodges a travelling band of fire-and-brimstone morality players called the Paradise Brothers. The first death, when it occurs, looks like suicide, but Nick isn''t so sure . . . Then a second murder happens right under his nose . . . and turns the Dream into a nightmare.

The third Shakespearean murder mystery in the Nick Revill series, set during the reign of the formidable Elizabeth I.

Praise for Philip Gooden:

''Another clever criminal plunge into history'' Guardian

''The witty narrative, laced with puns and word play so popular in this period, makes this an enjoyable racy tale'' Sunday Telegraph

''The book has much in common with the film Shakespeare in Love - full of colourful characters . . . but the book has an underlying darkness'' Crime Time

''Historical mystery fans are in for a treat'' Publishers Weekly