The Requiem Club: A Curious Conspiracy

Sydney, 1831 - Who was turning Botany Bay into Terror Australis?Who would bother to steal a dozen embalmed human heads? That's not the only challenge facing Nicodemus Dunne.Now freed from his prison sentence, he is still roaming the rum-soaked streets of the convict settlement as its Running Patterer, a hawker of news. And he is up to his old tricks as a thief-taker, following a trail of freshly slaughtered human bodies - with no heads!He must also solve the mystery of a grimy child, a scullery maid, in the town's best brothel. She claims she is the kidnapped heir to the British throne.But Just as pressing,is how to stop the murder of a harmless, if disturbed young visitor - a naturalist who seems desperate not to make it back to join his ship, HMS Beagle. There's menacing monkey-business afoot.A blind man who sees more than most and a clever dog, are with the Patterer at the climax - when the day is saved, barely, by a colourful parade of whores' drawers!