Sea Change

Bantam Books, Incorporated, 2002. Very Good. It is January 1721. London is reeling from the effects of the greatest fina ncial scandal of the age, the collapse of the South Sea Bubble. William Spa ndrel, a penniless mapmaker, is offered a discharge of his debts by Sir The odore Janssen, a director of the South Sea Company, on one condition: he mu st secretly convey an important package to a friend of Janssen's, Ysbrand d e Vries, in Amsterdam. The package safely delivered, Spandrel barely survives an attempt on his li fe, only to be blamed for the murder of de Vries himself. When de Vries's s ecretary, his English wife and the package go missing shortly afterwards, S pandrel realises that he has become a pawn in several people's games. Briti sh Government agents, and others, are on his trail, believing that the myst erious package contains secrets that could spark a revolution in England. Spandrel's only chance of survival is to recover the package and place its contents in the right hands. But whose are the right hands? And what exactl y are the contents? Once again 'the master of suspense' draws the reader into a web of irresistible narrative, this time set in an age remote from our own, yet in some respects strangely familiar.