Bloody Mary Mysteries Books in Order

In the summer of 1558, Jack Blackjack acquires a troublesome Dutch tenant who vanishes under suspicion, just as Jack’s latest lover is found dead nearby. With constables and criminals both convinced he is at the centre of the trouble, Jack must link missing merchant ships to a pair of murders.

Back in his London parish in 1557, Jack Blackjack is enjoying a lazy life until a young woman he admires is found dead on the vestry floor. Someone is framing him for her murder, and Jack must unpick her many secrets and a tangle of political motives to avoid the noose.

On the run from Queen Mary’s agents, London rogue Jack Blackjack stops at a Devon tavern, wins at dice and wakes to find himself accused of killing a powerful mine captain. Surrounded by angry tinners on their own ground, he must unmask the real killer before he ends up on the gallows.

Hoping only to reach London, Jack Blackjack pauses in Exeter and promptly trips over the corpse of a controversial Protestant preacher. Drawn into feuds between wealthy merchants and a string of attacks at sea, he bounces between taverns, brothels and a disastrous sea voyage while trying not to become the next victim.

Executioner Hal Westmecott demands that Jack Blackjack repay an old favour by tracking down his missing wife and son in London. Jack’s reluctant search pulls him into a world of vengeful families, political spies and a bloodstained lodging house, where every lead seems to produce another corpse.

In 1555 a priest is stabbed and left to rot by the roadside near St Botolph, and Jack Blackjack is branded the obvious suspect. Determined to save his own skin, Jack digs into the dead man’s past, finding grudges, lies and powerful enemies who would happily see him hang.

Sent to Woodstock Palace in 1554 with orders to quietly kill a suspected spy inside Princess Elizabeth’s household, Jack Blackjack is deeply uneasy. When his target is murdered before he even arrives, Jack becomes a suspect himself and must navigate a claustrophobic, treacherous court to find the real killer.

Former cutpurse Jack Blackjack is hired to kill a man, only to realise he would rather save the intended victim than carry out the job. His change of heart drops him into a maze of Tudor plots, false identities and double-crosses where every ally might be an enemy in disguise.

In January 1554, light-fingered Jack Blackjack wakes with a hangover beside a dead man in a tavern yard and realises the purse he stole hides a coded message. Hunted by rebels and royal agents during Wyatt’s uprising, Jack must solve the murder and decode the message before London erupts.