When Jack Digby's father is executed for high treason, the boy's dream life turns into the worst of nightmares; and when he is forced into the murky, ruthless world of double agents and cowardly betrayals, his fate would seem to be already written. As he grows up, however, he discovers that something is wrong with the official narrative concerning his father's tragic end. It will take time and suffering for him to discover that things are rarely as they seem, that the King's Men - the greatest playing company of all time - are not just simple entertainers; that our most bitter enemies may turn into our best friends; that, at times, Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair. "Altogether, this is at once an enchanting, engrossing, intriguing novel and a novel approach to early modern history, such as to throw an unaccustomed light on the inner meaning of Shakespeare's great tragedies from Hamlet and Macbeth to King Lear". Peter Milward, S.J.

"This thrilling and chilling historical novel brings Shakespeare's England to vivid life amid the backdrop of the vicious intrigue of the plot to kill the King and blow-up Parliament". Joseph Pearce