Please welcome the fourth book in the Francis Bacon mystery series, Publish and Perish. This 
one is the answer to my irrational obsession with the Marprelate Controversy, a conflict of great concern and consternation between 1588 and 1593-ish, pretty much forgotten by all but a few shortly afterward.
In brief, Martin Marprelate was the nom de plume of a Puritan writer who enraged the authorities, both lay and clerical, while greatly entertaining everyone else. Martin managed to write, publish, and distribute six inflammatory works before the printers were captured, in spite of the professional pursuivants desperately trying to catch a whiff of their whereabouts. That intrigued me, although I don’t follow this secret press in my book.
In an attempt to recapture public opinion, the church hired a group of popular writers to publish counter-strikes, adding more scurrilous rhetoric to Martin’s. That bafflingly ineffective strategy made me laugh. Furthermore, Martin was never identified in those days. Thanks to a book written in the 1980s, most people nowadays feel confident as to his identity, but there’s nothing absolutely definitive. That intrigued me too, enough to write a book supplying my own solution.
Digital versions available everywhere today; printed versions in two weeks. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Here’s the official blurb:
It’s 1589 and England is embroiled in a furious pamphlet war between an impudent Puritan calling himself Martin Marprelate and London’s wittiest writers. The archbishop wants Martin to hang. The Privy Council wants the tumult to end. But nobody knows who Martin is or where he’s hiding his illegal press.
Then two writers are strangled, mistaken for Thomas Nashe, the pamphleteer who is hot on Martin’s trail. Francis Bacon is tasked with stopping the murders — and catching Martin, while he’s about it. But the more he learns, the more he fears Martin may be someone dangerously close to home.
Can Bacon and his band of intelligencers stop the strangler before another writer dies, without stepping on Martin’s possibly very important toes?