A historical crime fiction novel set in Victorian London's gaslit theatre scene, where ghosts lurk in the shadows and murder takes centre stage.

Gaslight. Ghosts. Murder.

Hastings Wimbury has always dreamt of playing Hamlet, but for now he works as a theatre gas-boy. Here, he tends to a gas chandelier so powerful it creates its own weather, and limelight machines that can throw a shadow onto a wall ten miles away.

When Hastings suddenly disappears, his fiancée Flora sets out to find him with the help of Cassie, her rival in love who is more preoccupied with the ghosts terrorising the streets of London. Soon total darkness is imposed upon the city, and they realise that something far more sinister is at hand…

Ladies aren't supposed to solve mysteries, but this is a matter of life and death.

'The quality of its writing and the exhilarating absurdity and comedy of its plot: a Victorian theatrical melodrama on the page' Historical Novel Society

'Nocturne With Gaslamps is a beguiling, hugely imaginative mystery that brings to life the gaslit world of late Victorian London. Matthew Francis' new novel takes us close to the burners and the light shows, the wonder and the danger of a newly-lit theatre scene, and the secret lives of those who hold the flames. But where there's a lamp there are shadows, and what's lurking in the darkness of the city's night is wonderfully strange. A sparkling romp that surprises and delights.' Katherine Stansfield, author of The Magpie Tree and Falling Creatures

Matthew Francis is Professor Emeritus in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. He read English at Magdalene College, Cambridge University. He writes novels, short stories, and poetry collections. He has won the TLS / Blackwell's Prize for Poetry and the Southern Arts Literature Prize, and been shortlisted twice for the Forward Prize, twice for the Welsh Book of the Year Award and once for the Ted Hughes Award. In 2004, he was chosen as one of the Next Generation Poets. He is a Fellow of the Welsh Academy. Matthew lives with this wife in Aberystwyth, Wales where he enjoys playing chess, cooking and playing the ukulele.