A Head for Murder

London, 1594. Tom Musgrave rescues a young woman from a football game on London Bridge just as the ball is replaced by a severed head rolling towards Southwark. The head has fallen from the Great Stone Gateway, where the remains of executed traitors are displayed, but this victim is a woman and was never condemned by the state.

Tom joins Bishop’s Bailiff Talbot Law in searching the river and surrounding districts. They soon find a headless female body that does not match the head, proving that more than one victim may be involved. The investigation leads through bridge houses, official jurisdictions and the commerce of the Thames as the killer attempts to use public execution imagery to conceal private murder.