Historical Fiction Spotlight: Naming the Dead (Alexander Baxby Mysteries Book 2) by Karen Haden

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Amsterdam 1608: The physician Alexander Baxby arrives in Amsterdam eager to start his life anew, beyond the reach of his former spy-master Geoffrey and Archbishop Bancroft's control. His confidence is shaken when the body of a young Englishman is found beneath the Blue Bridge linking the city to the islands where immigrants live.

Patients and friends assume the death was an accident. Canal pavements are notoriously dangerous when wet. Baxby suspects Bancroft's spy network has spread across the Narrow Sea to target exiles in the Dutch Republic.

But how did the murderer kill his victim? And why choose this particular Englishman? A second body is found in similar circumstances. Who will be next?

Amsterdam is awash with rumours about a possible Truce with Spain. Confusingly, the names of both victims appear on pamphlets, posthumously accrediting them with Spanish sympathies.

Although Baxby's dreams of marrying and owning a canal house prove harder than expected, immigrants being restricted to poorly paid work, he refuses to give up or forget those who died. Only when his own life is threatened, does the physician begin to uncover lies, misinformation and malevolence on a scale he never imagined.

Baxby's own life hangs by a thread, but the truth must be told.

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About the author

Karen Haden left a career in consulting, including fifteen years with intelligence and cyber security agencies, to write historical novels about secrets, spies and evolving security threats. Her Alexander Baxby historical mystery series is set during the Tudor and Stewart years, when the printing press was changing the security ‘landscape’ as the internet and social media are now. Reflecting the broad nature of her earlier career, her writing includes the perspectives of ordinary people not just those at court. To follow Karen Haden visit X/Twitter: @kjhaden17 and BlueSky ‪@kjhaden.bsky.social‬