When a reluctant John Shakespeare answers a plea for help from Joshua Peace, Searcher of the Dead, a few days before Christmas, he cannot know what lies ahead. A naked man has been found in a snowdrift, a wreath of holly crowning his head and a bullet in his back. But it is no ordinary corpse. Shakespeare recognises him as Giovanni Jesu, a black man from Venice, a close associate - and some say much more - of the disgraced Earl of Oxford. Who would kill such a man and why? As all around him prepare for the festive season, Shakespeare must unravel a complex plot of passion and treachery and confront a cold-blooded murderer who will not hesitate to kill again.