Venice is alive with the magic and bustle of Carnevale.

A city of mysterious masks and gorgeous palaces, of riches, patricians, intellectuals and artists. And amidst it all, something new is being born: magnificent voices are soaring above the spires, astonishing costumes are being crafted, and audiences are being transported, for the first time, by the power of the Opera.

And beneath it all: espionage, organised crime, and murder.

Swordsman Richard Hughes has arrived on the banks of the Grand Canal looking for a simpler life, only to be plunged - alongside Phillip de Chambray, a remarkable woman unable to show her true self - into the thick of the murkiest, most dangerous European politics, at a moment when someone is trying to destroy the opera, and Venice itself.

Rich with authentic detail, this is the story of a complex world not so different from our own, and Christian Cameron, the modern master of historical fiction, brings real history to life in a way no other author can.

Christian Cameron is a writer and military historian. He participates in re-enacting and experimental archaeology, teaches armoured fighting and historical swordsmanship, and takes his vacations with his family visiting battlefields, castles and cathedrals. He lives in Toronto and is busy writing his next novel.