Otoño de 1583. El reinado de la reina Isabel está amenazado. Hay planes secretos para una invasión que colocará a María Estuardo en el trono de Inglaterra. Y un fenómeno astrológico que se cree que presagia la muerte de una era y el amanecer de otra conduce a la especulación salvaje de que se avecinan terribles eventos.
Giordano Bruno, el rebelde y carismático agente de Sir Francis Walsingham, jefe de los espías de la Reina, se infiltra en el grupo de conspiradores de la embajada francesa. Su misión es asegurar la evidencia que permitirá la ejecución de María Estuardo y su grupo de seguidores por traición. Pero su posición es delicada: aunque el embajador confía en él, Marie, su bella y astuta esposa, parece decidida a descubrir sus secretos.

A wonderful sequel to Heresy. I am totally in love with Giordano Bruno the way Parris has invented him. I look forward to more in this series! ( )

I listened to Heresy, the first Giordano Bruno book recently, and I loved it. It made me curious enough to buy the sequel, too, not least because Laurence Kennedy is such a great narrator.

I enjoyed this book on the whole, but it had some lengths, so I was easily distracted at times. In fact, I stopped to listen to a whole different book before returning to this one.
The whole story is slow-paced and only picks up some speed toward the very end.
It is a still a very good book, especially if you're interested in history. I was curious, so I did some research, and to my surprise, I found that not only the main English characters are factual (something I had been aware of before), but that even Giordano Bruno is based on a factual character, and that his ideas portrayed in the book were indeed the ideas he was prosecuted for by the Roman church. Same goes for John Dee and Kelley. I'm quite in awe of the amount of meticulous research that has gone into the Giordano Bruno series.
All history buffs will love this book, all those hoping for a great mystery might be disappointed, because although Bruno hunts for a murderer, this is a mere hook for a portray of the political situation at the time, with all its conspiracies and spying. It gives a perfect idea of the Mary Stuart-Elizabeth I problematic with all that's entangled in it.

A really great book with some weaknesses, but they are easily forgiven due to the amount of information the book contains. ( )

More good fun. Parris does a very nice job of integrating a whodunnit plot with the political scene of the time and with Bruno's particular interests. OK, the whole book quest thing is borrowed from Umberto Eco. Hey, if you're going to borrow, why not go to the top! It's not profound literature, but it holds its own perfectly well up against, say, Bernard Cornwell. Excellent entertainment. I think I read it in three days. It's a page turner! ( )

This historical thriller pitting the supporters of Mary of Scots and those Queen Elizabeth against each other had just enough occultist dash to make it a really enjoyable read. It is the second book in what I hope is an ongoing series centered around the former monk and current scholar/detective Giordano Bruno. Need to seek out the first book now. ( )