The Bone Fire

Get in the xigxag app
This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book.
Pre-order Buy Now £{{ price }}
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

The brand new Oswald de Lacy thriller, for fans of C.J. Sansom, Minette Walters and S.J. Parris.

A Publishers Weekly Book of the Year!

'Living legends Andrew Taylor and Susanna Gregory; bestselling phenomena SJ Parris and CJ Sansom... a league of extraordinary resurrectionists. If you love their books, I invite you to visit fourteenth-century England, with SD Sykes ... Savour the company of young Oswald de Lacy, among the most appealing historical sleuths currently on the hunt.' A.J. Finn

'A fascinating glimpse of an almost forgotten period of history.' Andrew Taylor

'Sykes give it (plague) a life and character of its own - swift, remorseless and deadly' New York Times

***

1361. Plague has returned to England - thirteen years after the devastation of The Black Death.

As destruction advances towards his estate in Kent, Oswald de Lacy leads his family to the safety of a remote castle in the marshes - where his friend Godfrey is preparing a fortress to survive the coming disaster.

The rules are clear: once the de Lacys and other guests are inside the castle the portcullis will be lowered and no-one permitted to enter or leave until the Pestilence has passed.

And then a murderer strikes.

Oswald is confronted with a stark choice - leave and face the ravages of the plague, or stay and place his family at the mercy of a brutal killer. With word of his skills as an investigator preceding him, it falls to Oswald to unmask the murderer in their midst. Host, guest, or servant - everyone is a suspect in this poisoned refuge of secrets, deceit and malice.

(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

  • An intriguing and vivid addition to an increasingly interesting series, and a fascinating glimpse of an almost forgotten period of history.

    Andrew Taylor

  • Living legends Andrew Taylor and Susanna Gregory; bestselling phenomena SJ Parris and CJ Sansom… a league of extraordinary resurrectionists. If you love their books, I invite you to visit fourteenth-century England, with SD Sykes … Savour the company of young Oswald de Lacy, among the most appealing historical sleuths currently on the hunt.

    A.J. Finn

  • Chilling and evocative. This book will have you gripped from the first page to the last

    Tracy Borman

  • If you love C.J. Sansom, you have to read S.D. Sykes. Her Oswald de Lacy series just gets better and better. The Bone Fire is a wonderfully claustrophobic and compelling mystery, filled with clever twists, fascinating characters and flashes of Sykes’s sly wit. Utterly immersive, utterly gripping historical crime at its very, very best.

    Antonia Hodgson

  • An ingenious, twisty plot with memorable characters in an intriguing siege narrative

    Rebecca Mascull

  • Sykes’ fourth is anchored in a grimly evocative first-person narrative reminiscent of Poe, and there’s a whodunit to boot.

    Kirkus

More from the same

Author

Narrator

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.