The Quality of Mercy

Faye Kellerman

1593: Elizabethan London seethes with political and religious intrigue, while across the sea thousands perish in the flames of the Spanish Inquisition. On the surface Roderigo, the Queen's physician, is a loyal subject of the Crown but secretly he and his family are Jewish conversos, hiding their illegal religion. Rebecca, Roderigo's daughter, is torn between her duty - which includes a loveless marriage to a converso - and her fascination with the heady world of Elizabethan London. Slipping out of her household one night, disguised as a man, Rebecca stumbles into a swordfight with someone equally romantic and heedless: Will Shakespeare, an ambitious young dramatist who, like Rebecca, has secrets to conceal and mysteries to unravel. Together, they embark on an adventure that plunges them into the sinks and stews of Elizabethan England - and into the course of history itself...