In these wonderfully stylish and eclectic essays Charles Nicholl pursues the fugitive traces of the past with the skill and relish that have earned him a reputation as one of the finest literary and historical detectives of our time. His subjects range from a murder-case in Renaissance Rome to the disappearance of Jim Thompson in 1960s Malaya from the boyhood of Christopher Marlowe to the crimes of Jack the Ripper from the remnants of a lost Shakespeare play to the last days of the poet-boxer Arthur Cravan in a Mexican fishing port. Full of insights curiosities and unexpected discoveries these thirty pieces written over two decades show the author of The Lodger and Leonardo da Vinci at his inquisitive best.