ROBERT J LLOYD chats to Paul Burke about his philosophical historical crime novel BLOODLESS BOY, scientist/detective Robert Hooke and getting published with a helping hand from Christopher Fowler.

BLOODLESS BOY: The City of London, 1678. New Year's Day. The body of a young boy, drained of his blood and with a sequence of numbers inscribed on his skin, is discovered on the snowy bank of the Fleet River. With London gripped by hysteria, where rumors of Catholic plots and sinister foreign assassins abound, Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, the powerful Justice of Peace for Westminster, is certain of Catholic guilt in the crime. He enlists Robert Hooke, the Curator of Experiments of the Royal Society, and his assistant, Harry Hunt, to help his enquiry. Sir Edmund confides to Hooke that the bloodless boy is not the first to have been discovered. He also presents Hooke with a cipher that was left on the body. That same morning Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Royal Society, blows his brains out. A disgraced Earl is released from the Tower of London, bent on revenge against the King, Charles II. Wary of the political hornet's nest they are walking into - and using evidence rather than paranoia in their pursuit of truth - Hooke and Hunt must discover why the boy was murdered, and why his blood was taken. Moreover, what does the cipher mean?

Robert Lloyd is the son of parents who worked in the British Foreign Office, grew up in South London, Innsbruck, and Kinshasa. He studied for a Fine Art degree, starting as a landscape painter, but it was while studying for his MA degree in The History of Ideas that he first read Robert Hooke's diary, detailing the life and experiments of this extraordinary man. After a 20-year career as a secondary school teacher, he has now returned to painting and writing. The Bloodless Boy is his debut novel. He is at work on a sequel.

Recommended:
Lisa Jardine - Ingenious Pursuits (biography/history)
Leonora Nattrass - The Black Drop (novel)

Produced by Junkyard Dog
Music courtesy of Southgate & Leigh
Crime Time

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network and edits/presents Crime Time FM.

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

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