The Foot on the Crown - Christopher Fowler

It is said a legend is just a beautiful lie...

In the second half of the first millennium, the legends say that London disappeared for over four hundred years. We know almost nothing about what happened during that time. But if we could shine a light on the city''s ruined walls, we would be in for a shock.

The Romans are long forgotten. It is now King Scarabold who rules what little remains of the city, together with his over-entitled daughter Giniva, her effete brother Leperdandy and their wayward, lunatic relatives - all squabbling and fighting amongst themselves for the future of their corrupted dynasty while trying to hide their most terrible secret.

And ranged against Scarabold is a horde of bitter enemies from both without and within his dysfunctional household - the eerie Sheathwing, Lord Carapace Earl of Beetles, the warlike nuns of Étranges Cadeaux, a primate called M''Lin, Orobus the serpent, the terrifying Mater Moribund and the sinister child-spies Spackle and Peut - united in their desire to bring king''s troubled reign to a bloody end.

But the arrival of a mysterious outsider into the midst of the beleaguered Scarabold''s snake-pit of a court that seems to offer a semblance of hope. The stranger''s name is Watborn and he is a birdcatcher - strong, silent, he will infiltrate the royal family for a purpose that is all of his own . . .

As fiendishly-armed warriors gather beneath the walls, the battle for London, its body and its soul as much as its bricks and mortar, is about to begin - and who will be left unscathed at the field''s end?