'There is no Light without Darknesse
and no Substance without Shaddowe'

So proclaims Nicholas Dyer, assistant to Sir Christopher Wren and the man with a commission to build seven London churches to stand as beacons of the enlightenment. But Dyer plans to conceal a dark secret at the heart of each church - to create a forbidding architecture that will survive for eternity. Two hundred and fifty years later, London detective Nicholas Hawksmoor is investigating a series of gruesome murders on the sites of certain eighteenth-century churches - crimes that make no sense to the modern mind . . .

'Chillingly brilliant . . . sinister and stunningly well executed' Independent on Sunday

Peter Ackroyd was born in London in 1949. A novelist, biographer and historian, he has been the literary editor of The Spectator and chief book reviewer for the The Times, as well as writing several highly acclaimed books including a biography of Dickens and London: The Biography. He lives in London.

About the Author
Novelist, biographer and poet Peter Ackroyd was born in London in 1949. From a working-class family in west London, he got a scholarship to Cambridge and went on to Yale. He was literary editor of the Spectator and then chief book reviewer for the Sunday Times for many years. He has written over a dozen novels as well as acclaimed biographies of Eliot and Dickens, and a history of London.

Reviews
Chillingly brilliant . . . sinister and stunningly well executed * Independent on Sunday *
Extraordinary, amazing, vivid, convincing. [Ackroyd's] view of life questions the role not just of the novel but of art and history, memory, time and much else * Financial Times *
A novel remarkable for [its] power, ingenuity and subtlety * London Review of Books *


Awards
Winner of Whitbread Novel Award.



Book Information
ISBN 9780141042015
Author Peter Ackroyd
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 202g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 18mm