Tom Walsingham is back! Book Five of his adventures, A Snare of Deceit, is out today with Sapere Books.

It’s New Year’s Day, and Queen Elizabeth’s court is celebrating: a banquet, dancing, music, a troupe of tumblers… Not that the atmosphere is especially cheerful, what with the Queen in a bleak mood over the fate of her troublesome cousin, Mary Stuart, hanging in the balance.

Someone else is not enjoying the festivities: Tom is in attendance, waiting for something to happen – something he had a hand in preparing; something that should tip the scales… So, when one of the tumblers is found dead in the stables courtyard, apparently fallen from a window, it should be none of Tom’s business…

Except, this particular tumbler was essential to the plan Tom had set in motion for his kinsman and master Sir Francis Walsingham – who is already on the Queen’s bad side these days, and can’t afford to have his secret manoeuvres exposed.

Add in a greedy moneylender, rival fencing-masters, and a reckless poet… can Tom solve the murder and save the day for Sir Francis, without ending dead himself – or in gaol?

Find out by reading… A Snare of Deceit!