Nocturne with Gaslamps

A historical crime fiction novel set in Victorian London’s gaslit theatre scene, where ghosts lurk in the shadows and murder takes centre stage.

Gaslight. Ghosts. Murder.

Hastings Wimbury has always dreamt of playing Hamlet, but for now he works as a theatre gas-boy. Here, he tends to a gas chandelier so powerful it creates its own weather, and limelight machines that can throw a shadow onto a wall ten miles away.

When Hastings suddenly disappears, his fiancée Flora sets out to find him with the help of Cassie, her rival in love who is more preoccupied with the ghosts terrorising the streets of London. Soon total darkness is imposed upon the city, and they realise that something far more sinister is at hand...

Ladies aren’t supposed to solve mysteries, but this is a matter of life and death.

Matthew Francis is Professor of Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. He grew up in Hampshire, Cheshire, and Surrey in the UK and read English at Magdalene College, Cambridge University. He spent eleven years working in the computer industry, mostly as an author of software manuals. He has since written a range of fiction, short stories and poetry. His poetry and fiction have been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, the Ted Hughes Award and the Wales Book of the Year Award, and in 2004 he was chosen as one of the Next Generation poets. Matthew lives with this wife in Aberystwyth, Wales where he enjoys playing chess, cooking and playing the ukulele.