Ex-Libris — Ross King

A cryptic summons to a remote country house launches Isaac Inchbold, a London bookseller and antiquarian, on an odyssey through seventeenth-century Europe. Isaac is charged with the task of restoring a magnificent library destroyed in the English Civil War. Moving between Prague Castle and London Bridge, Inchbold's fortunes -- and his very life -- hang on recovering a missing manuscript. Unfortunately, the lost volume is not what it seems, and his search is part of a treacherous game of underworld spies and smugglers, ciphers, and forgeries. Inchbold's adventure is compelling from beginning to end as Ross King vividly recreates the turmoil of Europe in the seventeenth century: the sacks of great cities; Raleigh's final voyage; religious persecution; and a watery escape from three mysterious horsemen clad in black and gold livery.