In the Shadow of the Enemy
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Scribe sleuth Christine de Pizan must discover who wants to kill the king in the second installment of this richly imagined historical mystery series set in 14th Century France.
Paris, 1393. A masquerade ball at the palace ends in tragedy, with four revelers burned to death. Was it an accident...or did someone deliberately hurl a flaming torch at the dancers? Convinced it was an act of murder and that the king himself was the real target, Queen Isabeau has asked Christine de Pizan to spend time at court to uncover the identity of the would-be assassin.
With the king struck down by an illness no one can understand, Christine finds the palace to be a hotbed of rumor, suspicion, petty rivalries, and dark secrets: a place where no one can be trusted. Could the king’s ambitious brother, the Duke of Orleans, be responsible for the deaths? One of his embittered uncles? Or could the killer lie even closer to home…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The mystery unfolds slowly in Bayard's well-researched sequel to 2018's The Presence of Evil. In 1393, a fire during a celebration at the royal palace in Paris results in the death of a band of revelers who were closely associated with King Charles VI. Queen Isabeau, convinced that her husband was the target of an assassination attempt, asks intrepid scribe Christine de Pizan, a widow with a reputation for crime solving, to discover the villain's identity. As she tells Christine, "Someone is here among us, putting an evil shadow over us. I have felt it since the night of the unwise masquerade." Meanwhile, Christine looks into the disappearance of elderly Martin du Bois, who has loaned her a manuscript. Christine agrees to take in Martin's petulant young wife until her husband is located, a problem seemingly more pressing than catching the arsonist. The action doesn't pick up until toward the end. History fans will enjoy this one more than mystery lovers.
