Writing as K J Maitland, Karen Maitland’s new Jacobean crime thriller quartet is set in the aftermarth of the failed Gunpwder plot and follows Daniel Pursglove as he becomes embroiled in the dark world of spies, murder and treason. The first novel, The Drowned City, takes place amid the devastation of the Bristol tsumani of 1606. And the second, Traitor in the Ice, is set in 1607 in Battle Abbey, Sussex. The third, Rivers of Treason, in which Daniel finds himself emboiled in a series of brutal murders, was published by Headline, in 2023. The pb of the final book in the quartet, A Plague of Serpents, published November 2024, has Daniel tasked by royal command with one final mission: he must infiltrate and aid the Serpents who are plotting to kill the King – or risk his own execution.
Karen has written eight medieval thrillers – Company of Liars, The Owl Killers, The Gallows Curse, Falcons of Fire & Ice, The Vanishing Witch, The Raven’s Head and The Plague Charmer. Her most recent novel is A Gathering of Ghosts, set in 1316 in the wilds of Dartmoor during the Great Famine.
She is published by Penguin and Headline UK. Her novella, Liars & Thieves, in which the characters of Company of Liars face a deadly new threat was published by Headline as an e-book. The free e-book short The Dangerous Art of Alchemy, also published by Headline, tells more true stories about medieval alchemists and their mysterious work. Her new free e-short is Wicked Children: Murderous True Tales from History.
Karen is also one of six historical crime writers along with Philip Gooden, Susannah Gregory, Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight and Ian Morson who are together known as the Medieval Murderers. Karen has written five historical crime novels with the Medieval Murderers – The Sacred Stone, Hill of Bones, The First Murder, The False Virgin and The Deadliest Sin – all published by Simon & Schuster.
Her novel La Malediction du Norfolk (The Gallows Curse), French translation published by Sonatine, won the Prix du Balai d’or 2015. An international award for noir literature.
Karen lives in Devon, not far from Dartmoor where Sir Arthur Colon Doyle wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles. She is a member of the Crime Writers Association, The Historical Novel Society and the Society of Authors. She is also one of The History Girls bloggers.
