Norwich in the 1760s is one of the largest and most prosperous cities in the realm. Its wealth comes from a booming trade in the famous “Norwich Stuffs”—fine worsted cloth, often richly dyed and embroidered. So when a leading cloth-manufacturer in the city is murdered and his business seems on the brink of collapse, there is a real fear that a forced sale of his huge stocks of cloth will ruin the trade for everyone else. Who killed him? Who is the strange, unknown, but apparently wealthy man who is trying to secure the dead man’s stocks to sell overseas? What role do the London cloth-merchants play in the tragedy?
With no kind of organised police force beyond a handful of rough, uneducated constables and night-watchmen, the mayor and aldermen are forced to turn to Mr. Ashmole Foxe. They ask him to unravel the crime, bring the killer to justice and save the city’s most important and profitable trade from imminent collapse; all in record time and without upsetting the delicate balance between the manufacturers in Norwich and the merchants in London who provide the bulk of their orders.
Mr. Foxe is an enigma. He claims to be a local bookseller, yet his shop is rarely open. He lives in grand style and dresses like a dandy in the most fashionable clothes. His chosen female companions are the notorious Catt sisters: one a popular actress and the other the madam of Norwich’s most fashionable brothel. He is clearly well-educated and at ease in all company. Where his money comes from nobody knows.
With no firm clues to go on, and every sign that the dead man has been taking care to hide some new business plan, will Mr Foxe be able to do as the City Fathers want? Will he unmask the fellow making the rounds of Norwich’s coffee-houses and claiming to be a rich merchant with unlimited money to spend? Will he be able to keep both his mistresses happy, when they tell each other everything and demand complete equality in attention and pleasure? Follow the wily Foxe through Norwich’s teeming 18th-century streets and find the answer.
With no kind of organised police force beyond a handful of rough, uneducated constables and night-watchmen, the mayor and aldermen are forced to turn to Mr. Ashmole Foxe. They ask him to unravel the crime, bring the killer to justice and save the city’s most important and profitable trade from imminent collapse; all in record time and without upsetting the delicate balance between the manufacturers in Norwich and the merchants in London who provide the bulk of their orders.
Mr. Foxe is an enigma. He claims to be a local bookseller, yet his shop is rarely open. He lives in grand style and dresses like a dandy in the most fashionable clothes. His chosen female companions are the notorious Catt sisters: one a popular actress and the other the madam of Norwich’s most fashionable brothel. He is clearly well-educated and at ease in all company. Where his money comes from nobody knows.
With no firm clues to go on, and every sign that the dead man has been taking care to hide some new business plan, will Mr Foxe be able to do as the City Fathers want? Will he unmask the fellow making the rounds of Norwich’s coffee-houses and claiming to be a rich merchant with unlimited money to spend? Will he be able to keep both his mistresses happy, when they tell each other everything and demand complete equality in attention and pleasure? Follow the wily Foxe through Norwich’s teeming 18th-century streets and find the answer.
