Lee Nicholson is ready to take the academic world by storm, having discovered a sonnet she believes was written by William Shakespeare. But when she reads the poem on the air, the words put her life in peril and trigger a violent chase-with stakes that reach far beyond the cloistered walls of academia. Buried in the language of the sonnet, in its allusions and wordplay, are secrets that have been hidden since Elizabethan times, secrets known only to the queen and her trusted doctor, but guessed at by men who seek the crown and others who seek the world. If the riddles are solved, it could explode what historians know of the great Elizabeth I-and release a terrifying pandemic. Lee's quest for the answers buried in the sonnet keeps her one step ahead of an international hunt-from the police who want her for murder, to a group of men who will stop at nothing to end her quest, to a madman who pursues the answers for destructive reasons of his own. As this intelligent thriller moves back and forth between Tudor England and the present day, Lee begins to piece together the meaning behind Shakespeare's words, carrying the story to its gasp-out-loud conclusion.
