The discovery of a hoard of ivory chessmen on the Isle of Lewis in 1831 still commands the attention of scholars and museum patrons in modern-day London, but the police are more concerned with the connection an additional piece has with a body that just bobbed up in the Regents Canal.

Just when Ernie Bisquets, a reformed London pickpocket, was settling into his new life with the East London Adventurers Club, his daily routine is interrupted by the apparent suicide of an old school mate. What surprises him even more was the bequeath left to him by the deceased - an old nursery rhyme and one of the lost Lewis Chessmen. Confused about the connection, the group starts to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death. They soon find it was murder, and that leads to the discovery of a second hoard of these enigmatic little figures hidden in a St. Ives bridge. What they didn’t realize was an unscrupulous antique dealer, who has been searching for this lost hoard for decades, is shadowing their every move. It’s evident more blood could be spilled if they are to keep these pieces from falling into the wrong hands.

Ernie Bisquets, Lily Jean Corbitt and Nigel Coats return in the second Ernie Bisquets Mystery, greeted by an even more engaging group of characters than they came across in the first book, as they dodge murder and mayhem in “Rook, Rhyme & Sinker.”

Originally published by Asylett Press 1/2011