John Rawlings has been summoned to Devon by his beautiful mistress Elizabeth, and eagerly departs on the stagecoach.  He finds himself in the midst of a motley bunch of characters, including a dancing master, a noisy German woman and a huge, black prizefighter known as the Black Pyramid.  At one of the inns en route, one of their number is murdered and of course John cannot resist trying to discover whodunit.

I have come to the conclusion that Deryn Lake is one of the best UK writers of historical mysteries, and this is the thirteenth entry in a series which shows no sign of deteriorating yet.  Just over two hundred pages is a modest length for such an action-packed book in which many events crowd upon the pages in an inventive manner.  The author has a good grasp of the period and manages a pleasing mix of the cozy, the bizarre and sometimes, as readers of the other books will know, moments of tragedy and high drama. Sir John Fielding does not feature much in this particular novel, but as with any long-running series worth its salt, we get a chance to catch up with what the various characters have been up to as well as be entertained by a new case.