The Tournament

Reilly is a master storyteller of modern adventure thrillers (Ice Station; Temple). In a departure from his usual motif, he sets this novel in Elizabethan England, featuring the Virgin Queen herself. On her deathbed, good Queen Bess recounts a tale of depravity and palace intrigue in which she was an unexpected witness. It is 1546, a plague is sweeping through England, and Elizabeth is 13 years old. When her father, King Henry VIII, receives an invitation from the sultan of the Ottoman empire to send his best chess player to an international tournament in Constantinople, Roger Ascham, the royal tutor, convinces the king to allow Princess Elizabeth to accompany the English delegation for safekeeping. Their visit to Constantinople is marred by sexual indiscretion, dishonesty, and murder. Owing to his reputation for logic, Ascham is asked by the sultan to solve the murders that have occurred during the tournament. With Elizabeth in tow, Ascham uncovers treachery and debauchery at the most exalted levels.