Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
Crucible of Secrets Cover Play Sample

Sample may contain unsuitable content.

Open Audiobook

Audiobook streaming provided by:

OverDrive Logo

Share this book:

Crucible of Secrets

AuthorS.G. MacLean

NarratorCrawford Logan

SeriesAlexander Seaton, Book 3

Duration9h 39m

CategoriesAdult Fiction, Crime, Thriller and Mysteries, Historical Novels

PublisherQuercus

VersionUnabridged

  Save to Wish List
  Add to Favourites List

Knowledge is power, and when it gets in the wrong hands it can be lethal. Alchemy and murder combine in a gripping race against time from the CWA award-winning author of The Seeker. Aberdeen, 1631. University librarian Robert Sim takes receipt of a gift of books recently arrived from overseas, mysterious works on alchemy and hermetics - the pursuit of ancient knowledge. By nightfall he has been brutally murdered. His colleague and good friend Alexander Seaton is left with the task of hunting for clues as to his killer's motive, as well as locating the missing books. What did Sim discover in the package, and what makes these books so dangerous?

5 (1 Review)
0
0
0
0
1

John 22 Nov 2025

Excellent.

Well worth reading or listening to by the Scots writer and his other books too.

Related Titles

Maggie Hope Series Book 7: The King's Justice Cover

Maggie Hope Series Book 7: The King's Justice

Author: Susan Elia MacNeal

Maggie Hope Series Book 7: The King's Justice

Author Susan Elia MacNeal

Narrator Susan Duerden

SeriesMaggie Hope, Book 9

Duration 10h 51m

Maggie Hope started out as Winston Churchill's secretary, but now she's a secret agent-and the only one who can figure out how the missing violin ties into a series of horrifying murders. London, December 1943. As the Russian army repels German forces from Stalingrad, Maggie Hope takes a much-needed break from spying to defuse bombs in London. But...

View Book
Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 11: How the Dead Speak Cover

Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 11: How the Dead Speak

Author: Val Mcdermid

Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 11: How the Dead Speak

Author Val Mcdermid

Narrator Saul Reichlin

SeriesTony Hill and Carol Jordan, Book 11

Duration 12h 16m

After an explosive case that forced Tony Hill and Carol Jordan to reassess everything they thought they knew about right and wrong, both are dealing with the fallout in their own separate ways. While Tony must pay the price for his actions, Carol is conducting investigations into suspected miscarriages of justice. But when a shocking discovery is m...

View Book
Gaudy Night Cover

Gaudy Night

Author: Dorothy L Sayers

Gaudy Night

Author Dorothy L Sayers

Narrator Ian Carmichael

SeriesLord Peter Wimsey, Book 10

Duration 2h 30m

When Harriet Vane attends her Oxford reunion, known as the 'Gaudy', the prim academic setting is haunted by a rash of bizarre pranks: scrawled obscenities, burnt effigies and poison-pen letters - including one that says, 'Ask your boyfriend with the title if he likes arsenic in his soup.' Some of the notes threaten murder and one of them involves a...

View Book
The Seeker Cover

The Seeker

Author: S.G. MacLean

The Seeker

Author S.G. MacLean

Narrator Nicholas Camm

SeriesThe Seeker, Book 1

Duration 10h 22m

London is a complex web of spies and merchants, priests and soldiers, exiles and assassins. One of the web's most fearsome spiders is Damian Seeker, agent of the Lord Protector. No one knows where Seeker comes from, who his family is, or even his real name. All that is known of him for certain is that he is utterly loyal to Cromwell, and that nothi...

View Book
The Black Friar Cover

The Black Friar

Author: S.G. MacLean

The Black Friar

Author S.G. MacLean

Narrator Jonathan Keeble

SeriesThe Seeker, Book 2

Duration 11h 13m

London, 1655, and Cromwell's regime is under threat from all sides. Damian Seeker, Captain of Cromwell's Guard, is all too aware of the danger facing Cromwell. Parliament resents his control of the Army while the Army resents his absolute power. In the east end of London, a group of religious fanatics plots rebellion. In the midst of all this, a st...

View Book
Dr Alex Gregory Book 2: Hysteria Cover

Dr Alex Gregory Book 2: Hysteria

Author: Lj Ross

Dr Alex Gregory Book 2: Hysteria

Author Lj Ross

Narrator Hugh Dancy

SeriesAlex Gregory, Book 2

Duration 6h 52m

From the International Number 1 Bestselling Author of the DCI Ryan Mysteries. Hysteria is the second instalment in Ross' brand new Dr Alex Gregory series, narrated by actor Hugh Dancy. Recently returned from his last case in Ireland, elite forensic psychologist and criminal profiler Dr Alexander Gregory receives a call from the French police that h...

View Book
The Bear Pit Cover

The Bear Pit

Author: S.G. MacLean

The Bear Pit

Author S.G. MacLean

Narrator Jonathan Keeble

SeriesThe Seeker, Book 4

Duration 10h 5m

London, 1656: Captain Seeker is back in the city, on the trail of an assassin preparing to strike at the heart of Oliver Cromwell's Republic The Commonwealth is balanced on a knife edge. Royalists and disillusioned former Parliamentarians have united against Oliver Cromwell, now a king in all but name. Three conspirators, representing these faction...

View Book
The Devil's Recruit Cover

The Devil's Recruit

Author: S.G. MacLean

The Devil's Recruit

Author S.G. MacLean

Narrator Crawford Logan

SeriesAlexander Seaton, Book 4

Duration 9h 40m

1635, Aberdeen. A girl lies dead in a frozen garden. A young man goes missing after a drunken brawl and a sinister cloaked figure watches from the shadows . . . The missing student, son of a Highland chief, is one of Alexander Seaton's pupils. When the young man's companion turns up bruised and bloodied, suspicion mounts that he has murdered his fr...

View Book
Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 9: Splinter the Silence Cover

Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 9: Splinter the Silence

Author: Val Mcdermid

Tony Hill and Carol Jordan Book 9: Splinter the Silence

Author Val Mcdermid

Narrator Saul Reichlin

SeriesTony Hill and Carol Jordan, Book 9

Duration 12h 47m

When psychological profiler Tony Hill comes across a series of suicides among women tormented by vicious online predators, he begins to wonder if there is more to these tragedies than meets the eye. Could it be murder? But what kind of serial killer wants his crimes to stay hidden? Tony and DCI Carol Jordan begin the hunt for the most dangerous and...

View Book
Destroying Angel Cover

Destroying Angel

Author: S.G. MacLean

Destroying Angel

Author S.G. MacLean

Narrator Jonathan Keeble

SeriesThe Seeker, Book 3

Duration 10h 10m

Captain Damian Seeker has gone north. Charged with preparing the way for the rule of the major-generals, he is now under the command of Colonel Robert Lilburne at York. But when Lilburne orders him to a small village on the North York moors with details of the stringent new anti-Royalist laws, Seeker finds that what should be a routine visit will r...

View Book