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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Item Barcode | Location |
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Book | Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library | F PHILLIPS | 31478010139047 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library | FICTION PHILLIPS | 31330008898862 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Billerica Public Library | FICTION/PHILLIPS | 33934004292828 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Boxford Town Library | FIC PHILLIPS | 32115002085239 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Burlington Public Library | F PHILLI | 32116003700867 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Dracut - Moses Greeley Parker Memorial Library | FIC/PHILLIPS | 31482002910787 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Groveland - Langley-Adams Library | FIC PHILLIPS | 32121000828067 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Hamilton-Wenham Public Library | FIC PHILLIPS | 30470001793016 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Haverhill Public Library | FIC/PHILLIPS A | 31479007369944 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Ipswich Public Library | FIC PHILLIPS, ARTHUR | 32122002784951 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Lawrence Public Library | FIC PHI | 31549004787262 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Lowell - Pollard Memorial Library | FIC PHILLIPS | 31481005447862 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Merrimac Public Library | F PHI | 32125001412649 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Newbury Town Library | PHI | 32127001240798 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Newburyport Public Library | FIC PHILLIPS A | 32128003852192 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Rockport Public Library | FIC PHILLIPS | 32129002387909 | Searching... Unknown |
Book | Searching... Westford - J.V. Fletcher Library | F PHILLIPS | 31990004855370 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Queen Elizabeth's spymasters recruit an unlikely agent-the only Muslim in England-for an impossible mission in a mesmerizing novel from "one of the best writers in America" ( The Washington Post )
The year is 1601. Queen Elizabeth I is dying, childless. Her nervous kingdom has no heir. It is a capital crime even to think that Elizabeth will ever die. Potential successors secretly maneuver to be in position when the inevitable occurs. The leading candidate is King James VI of Scotland, but there is a problem.
The queen's spymasters-hardened veterans of a long war on terror and religious extremism-fear that James is not what he appears. He has every reason to claim to be a Protestant, but if he secretly shares his family's Catholicism, then forty years of religious war will have been for nothing, and a bloodbath will ensue. With time running out, London confronts a seemingly impossible question- What does James truly believe?
It falls to Geoffrey Belloc, a secret warrior from the hottest days of England's religious battles, to devise a test to discover the true nature of King James's soul. Belloc enlists Mahmoud Ezzedine, a Muslim physician left behind by the last diplomatic visit from the Ottoman Empire, as his undercover agent. The perfect man for the job, Ezzedine is the ultimate outsider, stranded on this cold, wet, and primitive island. He will do almost anything to return home to his wife and son.
Arthur Phillips returns with a unique and thrilling novel that will leave readers questioning the nature of truth at every turn.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
All the world's a stage, and spies are the most committed players, in Philipp's winning latest (after The Tragedy of Arthur). In 1591, a Turkish doctor, Mahmoud Ezzedine, accompanies a diplomatic Ottoman mission to Queen Elizabeth's court in England, a "far-off, sunless, primitive, sodden, heathen kingdom at the far cliffside edge of the civilized earth." A guileless scholar surrounded by schemers, he becomes the queen's pawn. A decade later, a spy and actor named Geoffrey Belloc recruits the doctor--still languishing in England and having outwardly converted to Christianity--to befriend the "canny James the Scot," the heir to the throne who many in Elizabeth's Protestant court fear is secretly Catholic. Ezzedine agrees to engage James in a discussion of theology to determine the future monarch's true religious allegiance, while Belloc schemes a dastardly alternative to the plan Ezzedine agrees to. So begins a chess game, literal and figurative, in which the doctor, having infiltrated the Scotsman's Edinburgh circle, attempts to discern James's true faith through increasingly drastic, and potentially fatal, means. While the expository dialogue occasionally feels stilted, Phillips masterfully renders the period and packs the narrative with surprising twists. This clever, serpentine novel recalls the historical dramas of Hilary Mantel and the thrillers of John le Carré, and will reverberate in readers' minds. (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
The first novel in nine years from Phillips (The Tragedy of Arthur, 2011, etc.) is another bravura performance: a tale of espionage and theological intrigue set in Elizabethan England.The book begins with a Turkish expedition in 1591 to England, "a far-off, sunless, primitive, sodden, heathen kingdom at the far cliffside edge of the civilized earth." One of the delegation's reluctant conscripts is Mahmoud Ezzedine, the sultan's personal physician, who leaves behind a comfortable life and a beloved wife and son. But at sojourn's end, Ezzedinewho's become friendly with a British physician/naturalist and familiar with British irony and raillerymakes a remark that, overheard, allows a conniving rival to trap him; if reported to the sultan, the jest would result in the doctor's execution. So Ezzedine is left in England as a "gift" to Elizabeth's court, and when he saves a nobleman who suffers a public seizure, he is passed alongregiftedto the epileptic. Ten years pass; Ezzedine, now "Matthew Thatcher," has adapted to his fate by converting to Christianity and by expungingto the greatest extent possibleall memory of his homeland and former happiness. Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth is dying, heirless, and the leading candidate for the throne is King James VI of Scotland. But James' bona fides as a Protestanthis parents were Catholic, as is his wife, and rumors abound of his secret papismare in doubt, which could reignite the long sectarian bloodbath recently ended. Who better to peel the theological onion that is James, thinks the cunning spymaster Geoffrey Belloc, than the only Muslim in the empire? And so Ezzedine/Thatcher is regifted again, this time to the Scottish king. Phillips' incorporation of historyincluding an entertaining side plot about Elizabethan theatershows the sure hand and psychological acuity he is known for. One is reminded of Hilary Mantel's magisterial Wolf Hall but perhaps more pointedly of Graham Greene's novels, which also often center on theology and spycraft and often feature a protagonist exiled, like Ezzedine, to some seedy outpost of foreignness and amorality.A rare combination of literary finesse and quick-paced plotand another triumph from the versatile Phillips. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
On matters of religion, Elizabeth I famously said she didn't desire to make windows into men's souls. To preserve her Protestant realm and prevent future bloodshed, however, her intelligencers devise a scheme to do exactly that to her likely successor, Scotland's James VI. In Phillips' (The Tragedy of Arthur, 2011) inventively multilayered novel, their chosen agent, Mahmoud Ezzedine, is a Muslim physician in the Ottoman ambassador's contingent who was left behind in bleak England. In 1601, with Elizabeth old and ailing, Ezzedine is approached with a delicate proposal: determine whether James is at heart Protestant or Catholic, and he can rejoin his wife and son in Constantinople. Getting close to the Scots king isn't easy, though. Phillips crafts a believable late-Elizabethan backdrop laced with intrigue and juxtaposes it with a deep dive into the emotions of an intelligent man in exile from country, family, even a sense of hope. Evoked in exquisite language full of subtle shadings and theatrical references, the plot grows suspenseful, and readers will appreciate how it lets them grasp on their own where it leads.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Readers will flock to the latest from esteemed best-seller Phillips, whose signature literary prowess and nimble imagination remain ascendant.--Sarah Johnson Copyright 2020 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In the twilight of Queen Elizabeth's long reign, the court is abuzz with concern about the succession. The queen's handlers are especially determined to find out whether the heir apparent, James VI of Scotland, is a Protestant. Or is he really a Catholic at heart who will try to reestablish the "truth faith" once upon the throne, with all the mayhem that would entail for Britain? Enter Matthew Thatcher, alias Mahmoud Ezzedine, a physician from the sultan of Constantinople attending to the ailing queen and left behind when his fellow diplomats departed. Through the machinations of influential members of the court, Thatcher is eventually sent north to discover James's true faith, which he does by drawing on his vast knowledge of medicinal remedies when treating the king. VERDICT The indefatigably imaginative Phillips, whose works range from Prague, about Budapest, to The Tragedy of Arthur, which contains a Shakespearean play written by Phillips, offers historical fiction with aching contemporary overtones. Highly recommended, especially for those knowledgeable about the period and for anyone who enjoys a truly original yarn. [See Prepub Alert, 7/21/19.]--Edward Cone, New York