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...

Brilliantly written in language eerily reminiscent of sixteenth-century England and filled with the dazzling color and drama of Tudor England, Firedrake's Eye concerns a meticulously constructed plot to kill Queen Elizabeth I. Tom O'Bedlam, the mad son of prominent Catholic family, stumbles upon evidence that his hated brother has returned to England to spearhead a scheme to assassinate the Queen. Patricia Finney transports the reader back in time to the dirty, dangerous underbelly of 1583 London. Combining accurate and detailed historical research with story-telling of an unusually high caliber, Firedrake's Eye brilliantly evokes that danger and treachery of Tudor politics.

The year is 1587. The Spanish are preparing to launch the Armada against the English and Queen Elizabeth. Ex-soldier David Becket, now responsible for the Queen's Ordnance discovers that large quantities of gunpowder are going astray. Can someone in the heart of the English government be selling it to the Spanish? Unaccountably he is plagued by vivid dreams of England invaded, an alternative story where the Armada is victorious. Patricia Finney's brilliant reworking of the Armada legend is an imaginative tour de force. Thrilling, intricate, and inspiring, this is a tale of courage, of love, and, ultimately, redemption