Covent Garden, January 1708. Widow Trotter has big plans for her recently-inherited coffee house, not suspecting that within days her little kingdom will be caught up in a national drama involving scandal, conspiracy and murder…

Queen Anne’s new Great Britain is in crisis. The Queen is mired in a sexual scandal, spies are everywhere, and political disputes are bringing violence and division. The treasonous satirist Bufo is public enemy number one and the Ministry is determined to silence him. Drawn into a web of intrigue that reaches from the brothels of Drury Lane to the Court of St James’s, Mary Trotter and her young friends Tom and Will race against time to unravel the political plots, solve two murders, and prevent another.

The first in a projected series of Chocolate House Mysteries , the novel presents the London of Queen Anne in all its brilliance and filth, its violence, elegance and wit. The book moves among a rich cast of characters, ranging from the life of the streets and the nymphs of Drury Lane to the conspiratorial world of Queen Anne’s Court. At its heart is the Bay-Tree Chocolate House, Covent Garden, where Widow Trotter presides as she does over the novel itself, with good humour, fierce integrity, and resolute determination.