An agent sent to Muscovy to investigate suspected treason amongst employees of the Muscovy Company has disappeared without trace on the way to Astrakhan.
Sir Francis Walsingham, who began the investigation, is dead, but the directors of the Company know that the agent must be found, dead or alive.
The perfect opportunity comes when the Tsar, Emperor of All the Russias, asks for an English physician to treat his young half brother.
Christoval Alvarez, physician and former Walsingham agent, is the obvious choice, but is loathe to travel to this violent and barbarous land.
However, there is no withstanding some of the most powerful men in England, so Kit is soon on the way to Muscovy, facing storms, attack by pirates, and a fearsome Russian winter.
The search for the missing agent is fraught with danger, but Kit is soon also caught up in the murderous world of Muscovy politics.
To enter the realm of the Tsar is difficult.
To escape may be impossible.
About the Author: Ann Swinfen spent her childhood partly in England and partly on the east coast of America.
She was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, where she read Classics and Mathematics and married a fellow undergraduate, the historian David Swinfen.
While bringing up their five children and studying for a postgraduate MSc in Mathematics and a BA and Ph D in English Literature, she had a variety of jobs, including university lecturer, translator, freelance journalist and software designer.
Her first three novels, The Anniversary, The Travellers, and A Running Tide, all with a contemporary setting but also an historical resonance, were published by Random House, with translations into Dutch and German.
The Testament of Mariam marked something of a departure.
Set in the first century, it recounts, from an unusual perspective, one of the most famous and yet ambiguous stories in human history.
At the same time it explores life under a foreign occupying force, in lands still torn by conflict to this day.
Her second hist.
| Author | Ann |
|---|
Shakenoak Press Voyage to muscovy, paperback/ann swinfen
