"Vivid, engaging, densely plotted. . . . Dunnett is a master of suspense and misdirection."
--The New York Times

"Exciting, dangerous, fascinating."
--The Boston Globe

"A masterpiece of historical fiction."
--The Washington Post

"First-rate . . . suspenseful. . . . Her hero, in his rococo fashion, is as polished and perceptive as Lord Peter Wimsey and as resourceful as James Bond."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Dorothy Dunnett is one of the greatest talespinners since Dumas . . . breathlessly exciting."
--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Dunnett is a name to conjure with. Her work exemplifies the best the genre can offer."
--The Christian Science Monitor

"Ingenious and exceptional . . . its effect brilliant, its pace swift and colorful and its multi-linear plot spirited and absorbing."
--Boston Herald

"Dunnett evokes the sixteenth century with an amazing richness of allusion and scholarship, while keeping a firm control on an intricately twisting narrative. She has another more unusual quality . . . an ability to check her imagination with irony, to mix high romance with wit."
--Sunday Times (London)

"A very stylish blend of high romance and high camp. Her hero, the enigmatic Lymond, [is] Byron crossed with Lawrence of Arabia. . . . He moves in an aura of intrigue, hidden menace and sheer physical daring."
--Times Literary Supplement (London)

"With shrewd psychological insight and a rare gift of narrative and descriptive power, Dorothy Dunnett reveals the color, wit, lushness . . . and turbulent intensity of one of Europe's greatest eras."
--Raleigh News and Observer