A good historical thriller, set in Elizabethan London and Marrakech, in the year 1593. Plague has arrived in London, the queen and her ministers, and anyone else who can afford to, has left the city for anywhere with cleaner air. The poorer people of Bankside just have to do what they can and hope for the best, while calling on the skills of Doctor Nicholas Shelby and his girlfriend Bianca Merton who is an apothecary, herbalist, and some would say witch.
But then they are deprived of Nicholas as he is sent on an errand by privy councillor Robert Cecil. He is to go to Marrakech, ostensibly as an envoy of the queen, but also to find out what has happened to his spy over there. Unknown to Cecil and Nicholas, the man had been killed by a revolutionary faction hoping to overthrow the present leadership and distance themselves from the western world.
There are also many other intrigues going on, far too many to mention in this quick review, but never have the words "trust no-one" been truer.
This is the third book in the series, but the first I have read. Although I will definitely look out for the other two, The Angel's Mark, and The Serpent's Mark.