MURDER AT CIREY Eight days in spring, 1735 A race against crime. When a handsome young man is shot dead on an estate in the picturesque Champagne region of France, Victor Constant, military policeman, determines to find out why. But no one else, including the local magistrate, seems willing to penetrate the mystery of this brutal death. Alone and against orders, Victor confronts the notorious free-thinker, Voltaire, who found the body. Victor fights to protect the innocent and bring the real killer to justice. A second murder occurs and Victor's task becomes doubly dangerous: unless he can strip bare the conspiracy behind this intricate series of crimes, he stands to lose his military career -- and his life. Two best-selling crime writers say: Peter Lovesey 'Here is an invitation no lover of historical mysteries will be able to resist: eighteenth-century France at the Château de Cirey in the company of Voltaire, who discovers a murdered body. Marvellous tensions between the great free-thinker and Victor Constant, the book's hero. Is it a crime passionel or something far more threatening to the nation? The story dazzles and beguiles and the setting is pitch-perfect.' Peter James 'This is historical fiction writing at its very best. Astonishingly vivid, transports you instantly back in time -- wonderful evocation of the period.'