The Queen's Cipher

<p><strong>IN THE SHADOW OF THE THRONE EVERY WORD IS A WEAPON.</strong></p><p>In 1571 England was a powder keg. Queen Elizabeth's reign is threatened by plotters at home and the great Catholic powers abroad. To defend the realm her spymasters have built a new kind of arsenal: a network of spies armed not with daggers but with ink and cipher.</p><p>Elias Thorne a quiet Oxford scholar is torn from his books and plunged into this clandestine world. Commanded by the ruthless Sir Francis Walsingham he must untangle the secret codes that bind a sprawling conspiracy-a web of sedition stretching from the dark alleys of London to the courts of Mary Queen of Scots. Every letter he deciphers is a death warrant; every pattern he exposes brings England one step closer to civil war.</p><p>Across the Channel Michael Davies a devout young priest is dispatched on a holy mission: to minister to England's persecuted Catholics. But his path is soon entangled in the same conspiracy forcing him to become a courier of secrets he cannot read and a player in a game whose rules he doesn't understand. As a fugitive in his own homeland he must learn that survival requires a different kind of faith.</p><p>From the torture chambers of the Tower to the blood-soaked decks of the Spanish Armada Elias and Michael are two men on opposite sides of a war fought in whispers. One hunts for the truth the other for salvation. As their paths converge toward a final bloody reckoning each must decide what he is willing to sacrifice: his country his faith or his soul.</p><p><strong>For in the age of queens and conspirators the most dangerous lies are the ones written on the human heart.</strong></p><p><br> </p>