An English Catholic fanatic is on his way to England with Spanish gold and a plan to murder Queen Elizabeth I.
Simon Ames knows that if England is conquered by Spain, he and all his family will be taken by the Inquisition, tortured until they confess and then burned at the stake – for being Jews. That's why he works for the Puritan Sir Francis Walsingham, the Elizabethan M.
When Ames is beaten up in an alleyway off Fleet Street, David Becket, an ex-soldier with an ugly past, kills the attacker and rescues him. But is Becket in league with the assassin himself?
Tom O'Bedlam dances around London with his angels and devils and the Queen Moon. He's a lunatic, too mad to explain his dreadful secret – that he knows who the assassin is and when he will strike.
Through the mean streets of a dirty and dangerous 16th century London, across thatched rooftops and under London Bridge with its freight of houses and shops, Becket, Ames and Tom fight to find the assassin and kill him before he kills the Queen.
Which of them will die?
