A laughing hangman turns the stage into the gallows... When Nicholas Bracewell finds himself once again in the parlour of his lost love, Anne Hendrik, he was not expecting her entreaties to embroil him in the murder of a beloved choir master. Between tales of cruelty, forgotten maps of London and a butcher determined to rescue his son, it is yet another mystery for the book keeper to untangle. But will his quest endanger Lord Westfield's Men? As their latest play, The Misfortunes of Marriage, threatens to break them apart beneath the playwright's own belligerent ribaldry, the threat of the hangman stalks ever closer. And with every step his laughter rings with the power to turn even the hallowed stage into the gallows.