The reign of Elizabeth, the last of the Tudor dynasty, is a fascinating period of history, full of religious conflict, intrigue and murder and this latest offering from James Forrester will be, like his previous novel SACRED TREASONhighly sought after and critically acclaimed. His terrific sense of time and place captures the very heart of this period in history and he punctuates it with great storytelling, which vividly brings to life the characters within.
From the author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England, now a major BBC 2 TV series, and SACRED TREASON comes the brilliant new Elizabethan thriller. 1564: Catholic herald William Harley, Clarenceux King of Arms, is the custodian of a highly dangerous document. When it is stolen, Clarenceux immediately suspects a group of Catholic sympathisers, the self-styled Knights of the Round Table. Francis Walsingham, the ruthless protégé of the queen's Principal Secretary, Sir William Cecil, intercepts a coded message from the Knights to a Countess known to have Catholic leanings. He is convinced that Clarenceux is trying to use the document to advance the cause of the Catholic Queen. And soon Clarenceux enters a nightmare of suspicion, deception and conspiracy. Conflict and fear, compounded by the religious doubts of the time, conceal a persistent mystery. Where has the document gone? Who has it and who really took it? And why? The roots of betrayal are deep and shocking: and Clarenceux's journey towards the truth entails not just the discovery of clues and signs, but also the discovery of himself.
