Thief. Informer. Double-dealer. Whoremonger. Drunkard. Gambler. Will Shadwell may not be the most moral of men, but to Henry Gresham - gentleman, scholar, courtier, spy - he is invaluable. For in the dark days of the reign of King James I a man must know his enemies to survive; Shadwell, by hook or more often by crook, is one of his best sources. Then Shadwell is brutally murdered and Gresham is summoned to London by the man he fears most: Robert Cecil, the King's Chief Secretary, and Machiavellian master of a sinister network of spies. Cecil wants Gresham to discover the truth about Sir Francis Bacon's private life, but when Gresham begins his investigations, he finds that he is the one who is being watched . . . As Gresham continues to do Cecil's bidding with ever increasing trepidation, his enquiries into Shadwell's death uncover a plot so audacious it is scarcely believable: a catholic uprising, a violent insurrection, and a trail of gunpowder underneath the Houses of Parliament . . .