Newbury & Hobbes

An ongoing series of steampunk mystery novels featuring the adventures of Sir Maurice Newbury, gentleman investigator for the crown, and his feisty assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes.

Click here for a timeline of Newbury & Hobbes stories.

Click here for some free Newbury & Hobbes short stories.

The Affinity Bridge

Snowbooks (UK)/Tor (US)

Welcome to the bizarre and dangerous world of Victorian London, a city teetering on the edge of revolution. Its people are ushering in a new era of technology, dazzled each day by unfamiliar inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, whilst ground trains rumble through the streets. Clockwork automatons are programmed to carry out menial tasks in the offices of lawyers, policemen and journalists.

But beneath this shiny veneer of progress lurks a sinister side. Queen Victoria is kept alive by a primitive life-support system while her agents Sir Maurice Newbury and his delectable assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, do battle with enemies of the crown, both physical and supernatural. Newbury and Hobbes are called in to investigate the wreckage of a crashed airship and its missing automaton pilot, whilst attempting to solve a string of strangulations attributed to a mysterious glowing policeman and dealing with a zombie plague that is ravaging the slums of the capital.

Published September 2008 UK

Published July 2009 US

The Osiris Ritual

Snowbooks (UK)/Tor (US)

Death stalks London and the newspapers proclaim that a mummy’s curse has been unleashed. Sir Maurice Newbury, gentleman investigator for the crown, is drawn into a web of occult intrigue as he attempts to solve the murders. And he soon finds himself on the trail of a rogue agent – a man who died to be reborn as a living weapon.

Meanwhile, Newbury’s able assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, has her own mystery to unravel. Young women are going missing from a magician’s theatre show. But what appears to be a straightforward investigation puts Miss Hobbes in mortal danger.

Can Newbury save his assistant, solve the riddle of the mummy’s curse, capture the deadly man-machine and stop the terrifying Osiris Ritual from reaching its infernal culmination?

Published September 2009 UK

Published August 2010 US

The Immorality Engine

Snowbooks (UK)/Tor (US)

Published September 2010 UK

Published TBC US