'A vivid, gripping story, beautifully handled, with a gem on every page' - Tracy Chevalier'Once again J.C. Harvey has cleared the high bar in historical fiction by a mile.' - S. W. Perry'Vibrant, twisting and compelling' - Minette Walters'Excellent writing, intricate plotting and masterful senses of place and time make Harvey's books compulsive reads.' - HistoriaSummer 1630. The Swedish army is fighting its way down through Germany, with Jack Fiskardo and his company of scouts, or'discoverers', fighting the guerrilla war ahead of the main advance. There are new allies to be made, new perils to overcome, new enemies to outwit and new adventures to pursue; but there is also a fortune for the taking, a mystery to be solved, and a destiny to fulfil - one that will see Jack brought face-to-face at last with his sworn enemy, Carlo Fantom. And in the wintry forests of Bohemia, that destiny will present Jack with an almost impossible choice - does he pursue his final vengeance, or does he turn aside, to help a child as helpless as he once was himself?

J. C. Harvey is the fiction pen-name for Jacky Colliss Harvey. After studying English at Cambridge, and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Jackyworked in museum publishing for twenty years, first at the National Portrait Gallery and then at the Royal Collection Trust, where she set up the Trust's first commercial publishing programme. The extraordinary history of the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and of 17th-century Europe has been an obsession of hers for as long as she can remember. She made her fiction debut with THE SILVER WOLF in 2022, a historical novel longlisted for the 2022 HWA Debut Crown Awards, and described by Tracy Chevalier as'superb storytelling'.