Cheryl Sawyer has had six historical novels published in several countries by Random House, Penguin, Mir Knigi, Via Magna, Bertelsmann and others. Her protagonists face challenges in a world that is changing, and the eventful period that engages her most passionately is the eighteenth century, the age of the Enlightenment, revolution and international conflict, in Europe and across the Atlantic. Cheryl has set Murder at Cirey, Victor Constant's first investigation, in what seems at first a peaceful rural district where everyone knows their place: the gentry in their country chateaux, the merchants in the provincial towns and the well-to-do farmers growing wheat, beans and grapes on the fertile Champagne land ... As a mounted trooper, Victor Constant occupies one of the lowest ranks in a rigidly ordered society, where privilege often holds sway over justice. But his superior officers learn at once that Victor's own sense of justice is too deep to be gainsaid, no matter how many powerful people may stand in the way of the truth. One of these gentlemen, the notorious free-thinker, Voltaire, plays an ambiguous role at the beginning of the story. Cheryl Sawyer says: 'Victor boldly tackles the mystery of these crimes himself, against all odds. But Voltaire does make a contribution, as a kind of consultant detective. Writing this 18th century police procedural required a lot of research, of course. Which provided the most extraordinary background for Victor's tenacious and risky methods of detection. His next investigation will take place in the same region, where he has the great skill of revealing what goes on beneath the deceptive surface of "well-ordered" society.'