The John Dee Papers
1 primary work • 2 total works
Book 2
THE SECOND INSTALMENT IN THE JOHN DEE PAPERS
The acclaimed second instalment of The John Dee Papers. Tudor intrigue, murder and the dark arts - brooding superstition leaves John Dee isolated in the land of his father...
'Chills, thrills and satisfies. A fabulous read.' - Huffington Post
At the end of the sunless summer of 1560, black rumour 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 John 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.
The previous book in the bestselling The John Dee Papers is The Bones of Avalon.
It is 1560, and Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a year. Dr John Dee, at 32 already acclaimed throughout Europe, is her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts... a controversial appointment in these days of superstition and religious strife.
Now the mild, bookish Dee has been sent to Glastonbury to find the missing bones of King Arthur, whose legacy was always so important to the Tudor line. With him - hardly the safest companion - is his friend and former student, Robert Dudley, a risk-taker, a wild card... and possibly the Queen's secret lover.
The famously mystical town is still mourning the gruesome execution of its Abbot, Richard Whiting. But why was the Abbot really killed? What is the secret held by the monks since the Abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea, uncle of Christ and guardian of the Holy Grail?
The mission takes Dee to the tangled roots of English magic, into unexpected violence, necromantic darkness, the breathless stirring of first love... and the cold heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth.