Staff Pick: The Three Deaths of Justice Godfrey L.C. Tyler

If you’re looking for an historical mystery series to get stuck into, then I highly recommend the John Grey historical mystery series by L.C. Tyler.

The most recent and the tenth title in the series is The Three Deaths of Justice Godfrey. Sir Edmund Godfrey leaves his house one foggy morning in October 1678 and then vanishes. His body is found six days later in a ditch near Primrose Hill. He has been badly beaten, stabbed and strangled, killed three times in fact. People begin to connect his murder with a part he played in exposing a Catholic plot to kill the King. This causes tensions to run high with the result that pressure is brought by parliament to find someone to blame and to punish. Magistrate John Grey is called to London from his village home in Essex where he is given the task of finding the guilty party, and he has to work against the clock to prevent innocent men from being hanged for the crime.

The series is set in mid-17th century England during the time of the English Republic under Oliver Cromwell and the Restoration era that succeeds it. It follows John Grey, a lawyer and former spy as he navigates his way through a dangerous world of politics and intrigue whilst solving a series of murders.

This is one of my favourite historical crime fiction series. It is filled with well-drawn characters and with excellent period detail that never overwhelms the clever plots and counterplots. It blends mystery and suspense with dark humour and witty one-liners whilst exploring the political instability of the post-English Civil War era in England.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, I recommend starting at the beginning of the series. The titles are listed below in order of the year of publication.

Enjoy!

• The John Grey Mysteries · A Cruel Necessity (2014)
• A Masterpiece of Corruption (2016)
• The Plague Road (2016)
• Fire (2017) · The Bleak Midwinter (2018)
• Death of a Shipbuilder (2020) · Too Much of Water (2021)
• The Summer Birdcage (2022) · A Well-Earned Death (2023)
• ·The Three Deaths of Justice Godfrey (2024)