A gripping historical thriller set in sixteenth-century England and centered on the highly secretive cult of Saint Thomas Becket, the twelfth-century archbishop murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.London, summer of 1584: Radical philosopher, ex-monk, and spy Giordano Bruno suspects he is being followed by an old enemy. He is shocked to discover that his pursuer is in fact Sophia Underhill, a young woman with whom he was once in love. When Bruno learns that Sophia has been accused of murdering her husband, a prominent magistrate in Canterbury, he agrees to do anything he can to help clear her name.In the city that was once England's greatest center of pilgrimage, Bruno begins to uncover unsuspected secrets that point to the dead man being part of a larger and more dangerous plot in the making. He must turn his detective's eye on history—on Saint Thomas Becket, the twelfth-century archbishop murdered in Canterbury Cathedral, and on the legend surrounding the disappearance of his body—in order to solve the crime.As Bruno's feelings for Sophia grow more intense, so does his fear that another murder is about to take place—perhaps his own. But more than Bruno's life is at stake in this vividly rendered, impeccably researched, and addictively page-turning whodunit—the stability of the kingdom hangs in the balance as Bruno hunts down a brutal murderer in the shadows of England's most ancient cathedral.

The perfect historical crime novella to curl up with this Christmas! From a No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author. At the heart of the Eternal City, danger hides around every corner... Rome, 1569. When novice monk Giordano Bruno is told the pope wants to see him, his first thought is that it must be a joke. The second is that it must be a trap. Young Bruno's talent for complex memory games has caught the attention of the Lord's Vicar. Summoned to Rome, the city captures Bruno's imagination, and he soon slips away from his suspicious, austere host Fra Agostino da Montalcino, drawn instead to more glamorous, sophisticated companions. But accusations of heresy are only ever a whisper away, and Rome is a city of intrigue, trickery and blood. Bruno soon realises he will be lucky to escape the Eternal City alive. Please note that this story, along with two other Giordano Bruno novellas, will be published as a 3-in-1 collection called The Dead of Winter, coming out in Hardback, ebook and...

When fugitive Italian monk Giordano Bruno—philosopher, magician, and heretical scientist—arrives in London, he’s only one step ahead of the Inquisition. An undercover mission for Queen Elizabeth I and her spymaster provides added protection. Officially, Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe at Oxford University; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen. But when his mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly deaths and the charms of a mysterious but beautiful young woman, he realizes that somewhere within Oxford’s private chambers lurks a brutal killer. . .Amazon.com ReviewEdward Rutherfurd Reviews *Heresy* Edward Rutherfurd was born in Salisbury, England, and educated at Cambridge University and Stanford University in California. He is the bestselling author of Sarum, Russka, London, The Forest, and the companion novels, The Princes of Ireland and The Rebels of Ireland. His most recent novel, New York, was published in 2009. Read Rutherfurd's guest review of Heresy: With Heresy, S.J. Parris has constructed a splendid, unputdownable whodunnit.In 1583, England was approaching one of the greatest crises in its history. Queen Elizabeth, excommunicated by the Pope for her refusal to return the Church of England to Rome, was under threat from all the Catholic powers. Her spymaster Francis Walsingham had his own army of informers searching for conspiracies against the English crown. Everyone was on the lookout for trouble.Yet in May of that year, amongst the quiet and dreaming spires of Oxford University, a public debate took place that was nothing short of revolutionary.On one side, John Underhill, an unpopular figure, forced upon Lincoln College as their Rector by his powerful patron the Earl of Leicester. On the other, Giordano Bruno, a wandering Italian scholar-monk, in trouble with the Inquisition, and in the story (and probably in fact) serving Walsingham as an anti-Catholic informer.But what is truly amazing about Bruno is that he believed not like Copernicus and Galileo that the Sun and not the Earth was the center of the universe, but that the cosmos did not have a center at all. The stars in the sky, he claimed, were other suns, seen from vast distances, quite likely with their own planets, in an infinite space. In short, this monk-philosopher was a modern man. Sadly, he lost the Oxford debate.Against this well-researched background of real events Parris has added a few characters, including Underhill's lovely and educated daughter Sophia, whose presence in Lincoln College seems a happy invention. On the eve of the debate there is a murder in the college. Then another. And another. Sophia disappears. A Catholic conspiracy seems to be afoot. Also a romance. As the plot thickens, I was absolutely gripped, nor did I even guess at the ending until it came.The descriptions of Elizabethan Oxford are wonderfully atmospheric and vivid. The characters are believable and sympathetic. The plot is fast-paced. But there is also a subtle message for us about the human condition. Just twice, the author allows her characters to make use of modern words--"paranoid" and "propaganda"--in their reported speech. This isn't a mistake. Parris knows exactly what she is doing. She is gently reminding us, almost subliminally, that Bruno and Sophia--and who knows how many other of our ancestors--were actually modern people like ourselves, with free minds, trapped in a dangerous medieval world. --Edward Rutherfurd(Photo © Jeanne Masoero)"Discovering Giordano Bruno: A Note on My Research" by S.J. Parris I first encountered the character of Giordano Bruno when I was a student at the University of Cambridge writing a thesis about the influence of occult philosophy on Renaissance literature. I was immediately captivated by his multi-faceted career (philosopher, proto-scientist, magician, and poet) and the drama of his life during years of exile on the run from the Inquisition around the courts of Europe. All the accounts I read of him suggested that he was extremely charismatic, the sort of person everyone wanted at their dinner parties, and that he possessed the ability to offend and charm in equal measure--in the course of a few years he went from fugitive heretic to close friend and confidant of kings and courtiers. But he was also a man fiercely committed to his ideas, even when that meant deliberately provoking the received wisdom of the day and courting a death sentence from the Pope.At the time I thought Bruno would make an intriguing character for a novel, but other ideas intervened and for a while I forgot about him. More than ten years later, I was reading about the Wars of Religion in the late 16th century and came across his name again in a book that suggested that Bruno had added the profession of spy to his already crowded resumé, providing intelligence to Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster, from inside the French embassy where Bruno lived during his time in England. At the time, the English court was rife with rumors of plots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth with the blessing of the Pope and the backing of Europe’s two great Catholic powers, France and Spain, in order to replace her with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, thus bringing England back under the influence of Rome.I’d always been fascinated by this complex period of history, where religious and personal allegiance was in a constant state of flux and no one, including the Queen and her Council, quite knew who to trust. When I discovered the theory that Bruno had been a spy, I knew I had the material for my story. I chose to begin the series with Bruno’s real-life visit to Oxford in the spring of 1583; it was on this trip that he came into contact with many of the influential figures of the court, including Philip Sidney. Bruno hated his time in Oxford and wrote very unfavorably of it; I tried to fill in the gaps and imagine what might have befallen him there to make him take against the university so vehemently.Oxford (both the university and the town) provided a perfect setting for my novel. It was a significant hub for clandestine Catholic activity during the 1580s and 1590s, and an Oxford college is a closed community, the perfect setting for the classic murder mystery. I’ve loved detective fiction since I was a teenager and wanted to try my hand at writing one of my own. I spent a bit of time in Oxford, and I was shown around Lincoln College by the present Rector. Fortunately the late sixteenth century left behind a rich trove of documents and records, so there are a number of very thorough biographies and histories of the period available, which made it very easy to research.I hope you enjoy reading Heresy as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it. --S.J. Parris(Photo © Chris Perceval)From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Set in 1583 against a backdrop of religious-political intrigue and barbaric judicial reprisals, Parris's compelling debut centers on real-life Giordano Bruno, a former Italian monk excommunicated by the Roman Catholic church and hunted across Europe by the Inquisition for his belief in a heliocentric infinite universe. Befriended by the charismatic English courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney, the ambitious Bruno flees to more tolerant Protestant England, where Elizabeth I's secretary of state, Sir Francis Walsingham, recruits him to spy, under the cover of philosophical disputation, on secretly Catholic Oxford scholars suspected of plotting treason. As one Oxford fellow after another falls to gruesome homicide, Bruno struggles to unravel Oxford's tangled loyalties. Parris (the pseudonym of British journalist Stephanie Merritt) interweaves historical fact with psychological insight as Bruno, a humanist dangerously ahead of his time, begins his quest to light the fire of enlightenment in Europe. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Tudor thriller featuring Giordano Bruno, renegade monk, philosopher and heretic, for fans of C. J. Sansom and The Name of the RoseAutumn, 1583. Under Elizabeth’s rule, loyalty is bought with blood…An astrological phenomenon heralds the dawn of a new age and Queen Elizabeth’s throne is in peril. As Mary Stuart’s supporters scheme to usurp the rightful monarch, a young maid of honour is murdered, occult symbols carved into her flesh.The Queen’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham, calls on maverick agent Giordano Bruno to infiltrate the plotters and secure the evidence that will condemn them to death.Bruno is cunning, but so are his enemies. His identity could be exposed at any moment. The proof he seeks is within his grasp. But the young woman’s murder could point to an even more sinister truth…Review'Impossible to resist ... Parris creates a convincing sense of the past, woven with so much intrigue that the head fairly spins' Daily Telegraph * 'Parris writes with confident ease of Tudor London ... The dialogue balances nicely on a tightrope of period phrases and cut-to-the-chase colloquialisms. More, please' The Times * 'Parris's plot is well crafted and full of surprises, an imaginatively satisfying addition to the many real intrigues surrounding the imprisoned Mary Stuart and the threats to Elizabeth's security' TLS * 'Tense and lively, a welcome follow-up to Heresy, fully living up to its predecessor's promise' Daily Mail Praise for Heresy: * 'Heresy has everything - intrigue, mystery, excellent history and haunting sense of place. The beginning of a wonderful new detective series' Kate Mosse * 'Fascinating ... The period is incredibly vivid and the story utterly gripping' Conn Iggulden (bestselling author of Bones of the Hills and The Dangerous Book for Boys) * 'Heresy is a riveting read. Rich in both historical detail and ingenious twists, S. J. Parris has created a character in Giordano Bruno that will endure. A true rival to C. J. Sansom' Sam Bourne (bestselling author of The Righteous Men) * 'Parris paces her yarn perfectly' Daily Telegraph About the AuthorS.J.Parris is the pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt. Born in 1974, she has worked as a critic and feature writer for a variety of newspapers and magazines as well as radio and television. She currently writes for the Guardian and the Observer.

Return to the origins of master spy Giordano Bruno in three gripping tales from No.1 bestseller S. J. Parris. The Secret DeadDuring the summer of 1566, a girl's body is found within the walls of a Neapolitan monastery. Novice monk Giordano Bruno has a habit of asking difficult questions, but this time his investigations may lose him his place in the Dominican Order – or deliver him into the hands of the Inquisition. The Academy of SecretsAn invitation arrives from a secret society of enlightened philosophers, led by the eccentric Don Giambattista della Porta. Bruno is captivated – even more so when he meets della Porta's beautiful niece. But keeping these new heretical secrets soon becomes a matter of life or death... The Dead of WinterWhen Giordano Bruno is told the pope wants to see him, he fears he may be walking into a trap. The pope is intrigued by Bruno's talent for complex memory games, but Rome is a den of intrigue, trickery and blood, and Bruno will be lucky to escape the...

The new historical thriller featuring Giordano Bruno, heretic, philosopher, and spy, perfect for fans of C. J. Sansom and The Name of the Rose.August, 1585. A relentless enemy. A treacherous conspiracy. Elizabethan England is on the brink of war. Sir Francis Drake is preparing to launch a daring expedition against the Spanish when a murder aboard his ship changes everything.Giordano Bruno agrees to hunt the killer down, only to find that more than one deadly plot is brewing in Plymouth's murky underworld. And as he tracks a murderer through its dangerous streets, he uncovers a conspiracy that threatens the future of England itself.

The new historical thriller featuring Giordano Bruno—heretic, philosopher, and spy— which finds Bruno going undercover to prevent an assassination plot on Queen Elizabeth.England, 1586. A treasonous conspiracy . . . Giordano Bruno, a heretic turned spy, arrives in England with shocking information for spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. A band of Catholic Englishmen are plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth and spring Mary Queen of Scots from prison to take the English throne in her place. A deadly trap . . . Bruno is surprised to find that Walsingham is aware of the plot—led by the young, wealthy noble Anthony Babington—and is allowing it to progress. He hopes that Mary will put her support in writing—and condemn herself to a traitor's death. A queen in mortal danger . . . Bruno is tasked with going undercover to join the conspirators. Can he stop them before he is exposed? Either way a queen...

The No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling series A novella following Giordano Bruno as a young, rebellious monk in Naples

A gripping historical thriller set in sixteenth-century England and centered on the highly secretive cult of Saint Thomas Becket, the twelfth-century archbishop murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.  London, summer of 1584: Radical philosopher, ex-monk, and spy Giordano Bruno suspects he is being followed by an old enemy. He is shocked to discover that his pursuer is in fact Sophia Underhill, a young woman with whom he was once in love. When Bruno learns that Sophia has been accused of murdering her husband, a prominent magistrate in Canterbury, he agrees to do anything he can to help clear her name. In the city that was once England's greatest center of pilgrimage, Bruno begins to uncover unsuspected secrets that point to the dead man being part of a larger and more dangerous plot in the making. He must turn his detective's eye on history — on Saint Thomas Becket, the twelfth-century archbishop murdered in Canterbury Cathedral, and on the legend surrounding the disappearance of his body — in order to solve the crime. As Bruno's feelings for Sophia grow more intense, so does his fear that another murder is about to take place — perhaps his own. But more than Bruno's life is at stake in this vividly rendered, impeccably researched, and addictively page-turning whodunit — the stability of the kingdom hangs in the balance as Bruno hunts down a brutal murderer in the shadows of England's most ancient cathedral.

S. J. Parris returns with the next Giordano Bruno mystery, set inside Queen Elizabeth's palace and steeped in period atmospherics and the strange workings of the occult. It is the year of the Great Conjunction, when the two most powerful planets, Jupiter and Saturn, align - an astrological phenomenon that occurs once every thousand years and heralds the death of one age and the dawn of another. The streets of London are abuzz with predictions of horrific events to come, possibly even the death of Queen Elizabeth. When several of the queen's maids of honor are found dead, rumors of black magic abound. Elizabeth calls upon her personal astrologer, John Dee, and Giordano Bruno to solve the crimes. While Dee turns to a mysterious medium claiming knowledge of the murders, Bruno fears that something far more sinister is at work. But even as the climate of fear at the palace intensifies, the queen refuses to believe that the killer could be someone within her own court. Bruno must play a dangerous game: can he allow the plot to progress far enough to give the queen the proof she needs without putting her, England, or his own life in danger? In this utterly gripping and gorgeously written novel, S. J. Parris has proven herself the new master of the historical thriller.

S. J. Parris returns with the next Giordano Bruno mystery, set inside Queen Elizabeth's palace and steeped in period atmospherics and the strange workings of the occult. It is the year of the Great Conjunction, when the two most powerful planets, Jupiter and Saturn, align — an astrological phenomenon that occurs once every thousand years and heralds the death of one age and the dawn of another. The streets of London are abuzz with predictions of horrific events to come, possibly even the death of Queen Elizabeth. When several of the queen's maids of honor are found dead, rumors of black magic abound. Elizabeth calls upon her personal astrologer, John Dee, and Giordano Bruno to solve the crimes. While Dee turns to a mysterious medium claiming knowledge of the murders, Bruno fears that something far more sinister is at work. But even as the climate of fear at the palace intensifies, the queen refuses to believe that the killer could be someone within her own court. Bruno must play a dangerous game: can he allow the plot to progress far enough to give the queen the proof she needs without putting her, England, or his own life in danger? In this utterly gripping and gorgeously written novel, S. J. Parris has proven herself the new master of the historical thriller.

Perfect for fans of C.J. Sansom and The Name of the Rose, the fourth historical thriller featuring Giordano Bruno, heretic, philosopher and spy. August, 1583. Giordano Bruno, a heretic fleeing the Inquisition, finds a new life working as a spy for Sir Francis Walsingham. Along with his friend, Sir Philip Sidney, Bruno travels to Plymouth on the Queen’s behalf. There, they meet Sir Francis Drake, who is preparing to launch a daring expedition against the Spanish, which could turn the tide of war. Unbeknownst to Bruno, however, Sidney plans to stowaway with Drake’s fleet and return a hero – dragging Bruno with him to the New World. But when a murder occurs aboard Drake’s own ship, fear and suspicion grip the fleet and threaten to abort the expedition before it begins. Navigating the jealousies and loyalties of the crew, Bruno learns that someone with a deadly grudge is shadowing his investigation. Tracking the killer through Plymouth’s menacing backstreets, he uncovers some of the darkest secrets the city is harbouring. Failure will come at the highest cost – not just for Bruno, but all of England...