Keene's revolution
3 primary works
Book 1
Book 2
Book Two of English spy George Keene's adventures a la Pimpernel English Spymaster Thomas Challoner has sent Keene on a mission to deliver a treasure chest of 5,000 louis d'or to his principal agent in Paris, but there will be complications. Challoner's highly placed competitors - who have their own competing networks of aristos and royalists to whom they wish to divert funds - unleash their influence against the 'low born' Keene. Once in Paris, Keene is right to suspect Challoner's man, Jean Baptiste Dossonville, Inspector of Police. And things go from bad to worse when, after Keene meets up with Charlotte Corday and fails to deflect her from assassinating Marat, the Terror is unleashed. Keene now comes up against Jean-Jacques Demarche and ends up in prison under sentence of death. Somehow he must escape the guillotine and decide how to employ the gold.
Book 3
In the autumn of 1793, shell-shocked from his experiences of Robespierre's Terror, George Keene heads for Philadelphia, where he has relatives. He wants to avoid further involvement in the British espionage campaign against Revolutionary France. But Keene can't escape so easily. Edmond Genet, the French ambassador, is attempting to forge an alliance of 'free nations' against the reactionary monarchs of the Old Order. American society is divided. Sir Thomas Chailoner, the British spymaster, arrives and volunteers Keene's services to the pro-British faction. Keene complies, infiltrating the Jacobin clubs that Genet is setting up. Escaping with his life proves, yet again, to be no mean feat for Keene, especially when he finds himself caught up in the volatile repercussions of the French abolition of slavery and the British attack on France's West Indian colonies.