Deryn Lake

Deryn Lake was the author identity Dinah Lampitt adopted for historical mysteries. She created the apothecary John Rawlings as an investigator in eighteenth-century England, drawing the character from biographical material about a real English apothecary. Death in the Dark Walk opened the sequence. Later cases include Death at the Beggar's Opera, Death in the Valley of Shadows and Death in the Setting Sun. Death on the Rocks sends Rawlings to Bristol after a letter raises questions about an impostor and an inheritance. Lake also published historical novels under the Dinah Lampitt name and developed a separate mystery sequence featuring the Reverend Nick Lawrence.