Keith Mead

London, June 29th, 1613. The Globe Theater, ran by the famous playwright William Shakespeare, accidentally burns to ashes. Seriously affected, he stops writing and returns to his hometown, where his wife Anne and daughters Judith and Susanna get surprised to hear he intends to stay there definitively, after two decades working in the capital, neglecting his sincere affections for them.

A seductive stranger prowls the streets of Glasgow in search of prey: unsuspecting men who fall under her spell.

Sally Lockhart crosses paths with the nefarious industrialist Axel Bellman, the richest and most powerful man in Europe. She's determined to prove him guilty of corruption and fraud, whilst Bellman will stop at nothing to destroy her case.

Sally Lockhart has struck a man dead with just three words, sent to her in a message from her father just before he drowned in the South China Seas. But unfortunately, Sally has no idea what the words The Seven Blessings mean. Before long, she is drawn into a mystery filled with opium, secrets from her own past and, at the heart of it all, the Ruby of Agrapur.