Robin Blake is a novelist, art critic and acclaimed biographer of Anthony Van Dyck and George Stubbs. Born and brought up in Preston, he has lived for many years in London.
This is rollicking stuff. Cragg and Fidelis are an engaging duo, and their first investigation is like crossing Robert Louis Stevenson with The Archers - Financial Times Cragg's first-person narrative voice is nicely judged: historically informed and reticent in the right proportions. Robin Blake's crisply written mystery offers all the pleasures of a classic detective novel and introduces the reader to an appealing new historical sleuth - TLS Fascinating . . . Blake's knowledge of an eighteenth-century backwater just shaking off medieval superstitions is deep and engaging - Booklist, starred review