Seven for a Secret by Mary Webb

Seven for a Secret by Mary Webb

Lord Chamberlain John spends his days counseling Emperor Justinian and passes the small hours of night in conversation with the solemn-eyed little girl depicted in a mosaic on his study wall. He never expected to meet her in a public square or afterwards find her red-dyed corpse in a subterranean cistern. Had the mysterious woman truly been the model for the mosaic years before as she claimed? Why had she sought John out? Who wanted her dead - and why?

The answers seem to lie among the denizens of the smoky streets of the quarter of Constantinople known as the Copper Market, where artisans, beggars, prostitutes, pillar saints, and exiled aristocrats struggle to survive within sight of the Great Palace. In his investigations, John encounters a faded actress, a patriotic sausage maker, a sundial maker who fears the sun, a religious visionary, a man who lives in a treasure trove, and a beggar who owes his life to a cartload of melons. But before long he suspects he is attempting to unravel not just a murder but a plot against the empire.

MARY WEBB is a former newspaper reporter and currently teaches high school English in Patterson, Louisiana. The San Antonio Express-News, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, The (Monroe, Louisiana) News-Star, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, The Associated Press' Colorado Bureau, The (Houma, LA) Courier, and The Denton Record-Chronicle are among the publications for which Mary Webb has written. She is currently employed as an English and Speech instructor at Westgate High School in Iberia Parish. She had previously taught English 1 at Patterson High School in St. Louis. Mary Parish in Louisiana, as well as Morgan City, LA, and Dallas, TX.

She and her husband, Corwin, live in Patterson, Louisiana, with their two children, Quentin and Jory, who are featured in The Summer of Superheroes and the Creation of Iron Boy. This is her first book to be published. Mary earned a bachelor's degree in mass communication with a emphasis in print journalism from Xavier University of Louisiana.