"London, 1679--A year has passed since the sensational attempt to murder King Charles II, but London is still a viper's nest of rumored Catholic conspiracies, and of plots against them in turn. When Harry Hunt--estranged from his mentor Robert Hooke--is summoned to the remote and windswept marshes of Norfolk, he is at first relieved to get away. But in Norfolk, he finds that some royal workers shoring up a riverbank have made a grim discovery--the skeleton of a dwarf. Harry is able to confirm that the skeleton is that of Captain Jeffrey Hudson, a prominent member of the court once famously given to Queen Henrietta Maria in a pie. Except no one knew Hudson was dead, because another man had been impersonating him." -- Book jacket flap.