Droemer Knaur*

2
HISTORICAL FICTION
Sandra Lessmann
The King’s Judges
560 pages, 3-426-62960-4
August 2005
50.000 copies sold in Germany!
Russian rights sold to AST Publishers
An exciting first novel: a tense
pageturner with plenty of historical
atmosphere
London, 1665, the period after England’s
civil war: Jeremy Blackshaw has given up
his career as a doctor to become a
Catholic priest. But because of the laws
that suppress Catholicism in Protestant
England, Jeremy can only work “underground,”
using an assumed name. Assisting
him in his work is Lady Amoret St.
Clair, mistress of the King and Jeremy’s
protector.
When Jeremy treats the judge Sir Orlando
Trelawney, who has come down with
typhoid fever, he is unwittingly drawn
into a series of crimes that are plaguing
London. Orlando is investigating the
death of his colleague, who was poisoned.
And some of Orlando’s other colleagues
have met with the same fate.
Obviously someone is targeting the
London courts. In the notorious Newgate
prison, Trelawney meets Breandan, a
young Irishman who has been falsely
imprisoned.
But is Breandan the sinister murderer
who killed judges and other members of
the court?
Sandra Lessmann
A Daughter Born of Sin
600 pages, 3-426-62969-0
May 2006
60.000 copies sold in German!
Russian rights sold to AST Publishers
Jeremy Blackshaw’s second case – a
historical mystery set in London,
1666
One evening, Judge Orlando Trelawney
witnesses the cold-blooded murder of a
midwife. His servant intervenes just in
time to save the woman’s daughter Anne
from the same fate. Orlando consults his
friend Jeremy Blackshaw, a Catholic
priest who operates “underground” in
Protestant England.The matter becomes
even more mysterious when Anne, who
obviously knows more than she’s telling,
encourages Alan to sleep with her, and
thereafter accuses him of getting her
pregnant. Alan has to marry Anne. He
realizes too late that Anne was already
pregnant and just needed him to escape
the contempt given a single mother.
Alan sees the pregnant Anne being pushed
down a flight of stairs by a man he
doesn’t recognize. Anne dies, and Alan
can’t save her unborn child, either. Alan’s
arrested and thrown into a dungeon as
the presumed murderer of the wife he
didn’t love.
Sandra Lessmann, born 1969, fell in
love with England after living there for
five years and went on to study English
history. These same characters also
appeared in her first novel, The King’s
Judges.
Sandra Lessmann
The Gryphon
528 pages, 3-426-19766-0
September 2007
England, 1583, the time of the
Throckmorton Conspiracy: Ever since
the rebellion of the North English counts,
Roger Ashton has lived in exile, yet he is
kidnapped and brought to England by
order of Sir Francis Walsingham, first
secretary to the King.
Walsingham is hoping Ashton can give
him information about “The Gryphon,”
a spy whom he wasn’t able to expose.
Ashton is tortured and dies but doesn’t
reveal the name of the Gryphon, so
Walsingham has Ashton’s wife Marianna
arrested. The agent assigned to get the
beautiful woman is murdered at the
handover of secret letters from the
Gryphon, with Marianna nearby. The letters
are stolen. Marianna can’t identify
the thief. He uses her son to pressure her
to help him expose the Gryphon, and
thinks the spy is someone from the
Fenwick family, whom Marianna knows
well. When Marianna goes to the Fenwick
estate as their guest she is to infiltrate an
agent whom she’ll describe as a relative.
Marianna falls in love with Fenwick’s
nephew James Beresford, a loveable
ne’er-do-well … or so he seems.
Sandra Lessman’s previous novels have
shown her to be an expert on English
history as well as a skilled author of
historical detective novels. This is the
author’s third novel.