Tudor intrigue, murder, and the dark arts--the second in a stunning
and acclaimed historical series starring Dr. John Dee, perfect for fans
of C. J. Sansom
All talk is of the End-time, and the dead are rising. At the end of the
sunless summer of 1560, black rumor shrouds the death of the one woman
who stands between Lord Robert Dudley and marriage to the young Queen
Elizabeth. Did Dudley's wife, Amy, die from an accidental fall in a
deserted house, or was it murder? Even Dr. John Dee, astrologer royal,
adviser on the Hidden, and one of Dudley's oldest friends, is uncertain.
Then a rash promise to the Queen sends him to his family's old home on
the Welsh Border in pursuit of the Wigmore Shewstone, a crystal credited
with supernatural properties. With Dee goes Robert Dudley, considered
the most hated man in England. They travel with a London judge sent to
try a sinister Welsh brigand with a legacy dating back to the Battle of
Brynglas. After the battle, many of the English bodies were, according
to legend, obscenely mutilated. Now, on the same haunted hill, another
dead man has been found, similarly slashed. Devious politics, small-town
corruption, twisted religion, and a brooding superstition leave John Dee
isolated in the land of his father.