Book description
1592. England and Spain are at war, yet there is peril at home, too.
The death of her trusted spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham has left Queen
Elizabeth vulnerable. Conspiracies multiply. The quiet life of John
Shakespeare is shattered by a summons from Robert Cecil, the cold but
deadly young statesman who dominated the last years of the Queen's long
reign, insisting Shakespeare re-enter government service. His mission:
to find vital papers, now in the possession of the Earl of Essex. Essex
is the brightest star in the firmament, a man of ambition. He woos the
Queen, thirty-three years his senior, as if she were a girl his age. She
is flattered by him -- despite her loathing for his mother, the
beautiful, dangerous Lettice Knollys who presides over her own
glittering court -- a dazzling array of the mad, bad, dangerous and
disaffected. When John Shakespeare infiltrates this dissolute world he
discovers not only that the Queen herself is in danger -- but that he
and his family is also a target. With only his loyal footsoldier
Boltfoot Cooper at his side, Shakespeare must face implacable forces who
believe themselves above the law: men and women who kill without
compunction. And in a world of shifting allegiances, just how far he can
trust Robert Cecil, his devious new master?
