Arthur Phillips Boeken

1601. Queen Elizabeth I is dying. With no heir for the kingdom, potential successors secretly maneuver to be in position when the inevitable occurs. The leading candidate is King James VI of Scotland, but there is a problem. The queen's spymasters fear that James' claim to be a Protestant are untrue. If he secretly shares his family's Catholicism, then forty years of religious war will have been for nothing, and a bloodbath will ensue. It falls to Geoffrey Belloc to devise a test to discover the true nature of King James's soul. Belloc enlists Mahmoud Ezzedine, a Muslim physician from the Ottoman Empire, as his undercover agent. -- adapted from jacket

Just as Howard Carter unveils the tomb of Tutankhamun, Oxford-educated Egyptologist Ralph Trilipush is digging himself into trouble. Meanwhile, a relentless Australian detective sets off on the case of his career, spanning the globe in search of a murderer. And another murderer. And possibly another murderer. The confluence of these seemingly separate stories results in an explosive ending, at once inevitable and utterly unpredictable

A group of American expats en route to adventure, inspiration, or perhaps even history in the making in Prague, somehow get sidetracked and settle instead for the enigmatic and enlightening city of Budapest. With humour, Phillips captures the character of his contemporaries and renders the Hungary of the past.

When Constance married Joseph Barton, she believed she had found the perfect husband. But after the troubled birth of their daughter Angelica, Constance begins to fear for her life and avoids her wifely duties.