"It is 1913, and those who follow the news closely can see the world is teetering on the brink of war. Jack McColl, a Scottish car salesman with an uncanny ear for languages, has always hoped to make a job for himself as a spy. As his sales calls take him from city to great city--Hong Kong to Shanghai to San Francisco to New York--he moonlights collecting intelligence for His Majesty's Navy, but British espionage is in its infancy and Jack has nothing...

"In 1989, a killer dumped the body of twenty-year-old Lucie Martin into a picturesque lake in the west of France. Fourteen years later, during a summer heat wave, a drought exposed her remains--bleached bones amid the scorched mud and slime. No one was ever convicted of her murder. But now, forensic expert Enzo Macleod is reviewing this stone-cold case--the toughest of the seven he has been challenged to solve. But when Enzo finds a flaw in the original...

In 1582 thirteen-year-old Emilia Bassano is a lute player and aspiring playwright who stumbles on a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth, and is recruited by Sir Francis Walsingham to go to the castle where Mary Queen of Scots is being held and discover who is responsible for the plot.