Susan Rowland
Former Archivist Mary Wandwalker hates bringing bad news. Nevertheless, she confirms to her alma mater that their prized medieval alchemy scroll, is, in fact, a seventeenth century copy. She learns that the original vanished to colonial Connecticut with alchemist, Robert Le More. Later the genuine scroll surfaces in Los Angeles. Given that the authentic artifact is needed for her Oxford college to survive, retrieving it is essential.Mary agrees to get the real scroll back as part of a commission for her three-person Enquiry Agency. However, tragedy strikes in Los Angeles. Before Mary can legally obtain the scroll, a young man is murdered, and the treasure stolen. Murder and theft are complicated by the disappearance in the UK of a witch mysteriously connected to the scroll. While Mary’s colleague, Caroline, risks her sanity to go undercover in a dodgy mental hospital, her lover, Anna resorts to desperate measures. These, and Anna’s silence over blackmail, threaten the survival of the Agency. Mary teams up with the victim’s brother to track the killer, and the real alchemy scroll. Solving crimes on two continents will involve a rogue pharmaceutical corporation, Janet the witch, the Holywell Retreat Center near Oxford, plus the trafficked women they support, a graduate school in California, and a life-threatening mountain-consuming wildfire. Can these inexperienced detectives triumph over corrupt professors and racist attempts to rewrite history? Can they remake their fragile family? Will the extraordinary story of Robert Le More prove a source of hope for today?CONTENTSPROLOGUE: Oxford 1399, January, Prima Materia orMother Julian’s GiftCHAPTER 1: A Present Day Summons CHAPTER 2: St Julian’s College has a problem CHAPTER 3: Who Stole the Alchemy Scroll? CHAPTER 4: What has Been Split Must Be Reunited 3CHAPTER 5: A Mixing of Bitter Substances CHAPTER 6: Holywell’s Vulnerable Clients CHAPTER 7: Mary Takes Charge CHAPTER 8: Like Treats Like CHAPTER 9: Two Brits in Snowbound Los Angeles CHAPTER 10: Strange Mixing CHAPTER 11: Anna and Leni CHAPTER 12: Into Darkness CHAPTER 13: An Awful Lot of Blood CHAPTER 14: They Call Him Cookie Mac CHAPTER 15: Who’s Looking for the Invisible College? CHAPTER 16: Brother of the Victim CHAPTER 17: Pursuit of the Scroll and the Murderer CHAPTER 18: Stew CHAPTER 19: Janet Holds the Key CHAPTER 20: Janet’s Story CHAPTER 21: An Arsonist at The Old Hospital CHAPTER 22: The Fire Between Them CHAPTER 23: A Good meal Around the Fire THE ALCHEMY FIRE MURDERCHAPTER 24: Miss Wandwalker on the Trail CHAPTER 25: The European History Foundation CHAPTER 26: Mary and Sam CHAPTER 27: Flying Apart CHAPTER 28: Betrayal CHAPTER 29: Anna with the Scroll CHAPTER 30: Over Water, Back to Earth CHAPTER 31: Reunion at Holywell CHAPTER 32: Pizza After the Storm CHAPTER 33: A Phone call to St. Julian’s CHAPTER 34: Trouble at St. Julian’s CHAPTER 35: St. Julian’s in Turmoil CHAPTER 36: Reading and Gardening CHAPTER 37: Letters Across the Atlantic CHAPTER 38: In the Doldrums CHAPTER 39: Roberta Africanus CHAPTER 40: Mercurius CHAPTER 41: Coagulation CHAPTER 42: Mer-Corp CHAPTER 43: President of the Alchemy School CHAPTER 44: Roberta Le More’s Scroll CHAPTER 45: Land of the Fire CHAPTER 46: Confronting Demons CHAPTER 47: Fire in the Valley CHAPTER 48: Your host, Jez Wiseman CHAPTER 49: Last Act in OxfordCHAPTER 50: A Question of Trust
