Algernon Charles Swinburne, scandalous poet of the mid 1860s whose verses riveted and appalled London, recalls his extraordinary life from the safety of his captivity in Putney under the guardianship of the sinister lawyer and Pre-Raphaelite groupie, Theodore Watts Dunton. His journals find their way into the hands of the critic Edmund Gosse who provides his own surprising perspective on events as Swinburne's bizarre and sinister relationship with the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Simeon Solomon unfolds. The scene moves from country house to the studios of the Pre- Raphaelites, to France, and back...

When Lady Prettyman is found dead at a bridge holiday in Italy, gay partners Mark and John set about becoming (very) amateur detectives; as they muddle through, they begin to discover the secret lives of their apparently innocuous fellow bridge players. Their search takes them to very different venues: a gingerbread house, a remote Welsh farm, a strange taxidermy, a dodgy prep school, and a house with echoes of 'Hamlet', to name just a few. More deaths and sinister events occur: there are poisoned chocolates, a garden full of belladonna, and a terrifying parrot. Suspects multiply and as Mark...