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Summary
Summary
Queen Elizabeth's spymasters recruit an unlikely agent-the only Muslim in England-for an impossible mission in a mesmerizing novel from "one of the best writers in America" ( The Washington Post )
The year is 1601. Queen Elizabeth I is dying, childless. Her nervous kingdom has no heir. It is a capital crime even to think that Elizabeth will ever die. Potential successors secretly maneuver to be in position when the inevitable occurs. The leading candidate is King James VI of Scotland, but there is a problem.
The queen's spymasters-hardened veterans of a long war on terror and religious extremism-fear that James is not what he appears. He has every reason to claim to be a Protestant, but if he secretly shares his family's Catholicism, then forty years of religious war will have been for nothing, and a bloodbath will ensue. With time running out, London confronts a seemingly impossible question- What does James truly believe?
It falls to Geoffrey Belloc, a secret warrior from the hottest days of England's religious battles, to devise a test to discover the true nature of King James's soul. Belloc enlists Mahmoud Ezzedine, a Muslim physician left behind by the last diplomatic visit from the Ottoman Empire, as his undercover agent. The perfect man for the job, Ezzedine is the ultimate outsider, stranded on this cold, wet, and primitive island. He will do almost anything to return home to his wife and son.
Arthur Phillips returns with a unique and thrilling novel that will leave readers questioning the nature of truth at every turn.
Author Notes
Arthur Phillips is the internationally bestselling author of The Tragedy of Arthur; The Song Is You, which was a New York Times Notable Book and named one of the best novels of the year by The Washington Post; Angelica, which was adapted into a 2015 film; The Egyptologist; and Prague, which was also a New York Times Notable Book and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. He lives in New York.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
All the world's a stage, and spies are the most committed players, in Philipp's winning latest (after The Tragedy of Arthur). In 1591, a Turkish doctor, Mahmoud Ezzedine, accompanies a diplomatic Ottoman mission to Queen Elizabeth's court in England, a "far-off, sunless, primitive, sodden, heathen kingdom at the far cliffside edge of the civilized earth." A guileless scholar surrounded by schemers, he becomes the queen's pawn. A decade later, a spy and actor named Geoffrey Belloc recruits the doctor--still languishing in England and having outwardly converted to Christianity--to befriend the "canny James the Scot," the heir to the throne who many in Elizabeth's Protestant court fear is secretly Catholic. Ezzedine agrees to engage James in a discussion of theology to determine the future monarch's true religious allegiance, while Belloc schemes a dastardly alternative to the plan Ezzedine agrees to. So begins a chess game, literal and figurative, in which the doctor, having infiltrated the Scotsman's Edinburgh circle, attempts to discern James's true faith through increasingly drastic, and potentially fatal, means. While the expository dialogue occasionally feels stilted, Phillips masterfully renders the period and packs the narrative with surprising twists. This clever, serpentine novel recalls the historical dramas of Hilary Mantel and the thrillers of John le Carré, and will reverberate in readers' minds. (Feb.)
Booklist Review
On matters of religion, Elizabeth I famously said she didn't desire to make windows into men's souls. To preserve her Protestant realm and prevent future bloodshed, however, her intelligencers devise a scheme to do exactly that to her likely successor, Scotland's James VI. In Phillips' (The Tragedy of Arthur, 2011) inventively multilayered novel, their chosen agent, Mahmoud Ezzedine, is a Muslim physician in the Ottoman ambassador's contingent who was left behind in bleak England. In 1601, with Elizabeth old and ailing, Ezzedine is approached with a delicate proposal: determine whether James is at heart Protestant or Catholic, and he can rejoin his wife and son in Constantinople. Getting close to the Scots king isn't easy, though. Phillips crafts a believable late-Elizabethan backdrop laced with intrigue and juxtaposes it with a deep dive into the emotions of an intelligent man in exile from country, family, even a sense of hope. Evoked in exquisite language full of subtle shadings and theatrical references, the plot grows suspenseful, and readers will appreciate how it lets them grasp on their own where it leads.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Readers will flock to the latest from esteemed best-seller Phillips, whose signature literary prowess and nimble imagination remain ascendant.--Sarah Johnson Copyright 2020 Booklist
Kirkus Review
The first novel in nine years from Phillips (The Tragedy of Arthur, 2011, etc.) is another bravura performance: a tale of espionage and theological intrigue set in Elizabethan England.The book begins with a Turkish expedition in 1591 to England, "a far-off, sunless, primitive, sodden, heathen kingdom at the far cliffside edge of the civilized earth." One of the delegation's reluctant conscripts is Mahmoud Ezzedine, the sultan's personal physician, who leaves behind a comfortable life and a beloved wife and son. But at sojourn's end, Ezzedinewho's become friendly with a British physician/naturalist and familiar with British irony and raillerymakes a remark that, overheard, allows a conniving rival to trap him; if reported to the sultan, the jest would result in the doctor's execution. So Ezzedine is left in England as a "gift" to Elizabeth's court, and when he saves a nobleman who suffers a public seizure, he is passed alongregiftedto the epileptic. Ten years pass; Ezzedine, now "Matthew Thatcher," has adapted to his fate by converting to Christianity and by expungingto the greatest extent possibleall memory of his homeland and former happiness. Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth is dying, heirless, and the leading candidate for the throne is King James VI of Scotland. But James' bona fides as a Protestanthis parents were Catholic, as is his wife, and rumors abound of his secret papismare in doubt, which could reignite the long sectarian bloodbath recently ended. Who better to peel the theological onion that is James, thinks the cunning spymaster Geoffrey Belloc, than the only Muslim in the empire? And so Ezzedine/Thatcher is regifted again, this time to the Scottish king. Phillips' incorporation of historyincluding an entertaining side plot about Elizabethan theatershows the sure hand and psychological acuity he is known for. One is reminded of Hilary Mantel's magisterial Wolf Hall but perhaps more pointedly of Graham Greene's novels, which also often center on theology and spycraft and often feature a protagonist exiled, like Ezzedine, to some seedy outpost of foreignness and amorality.A rare combination of literary finesse and quick-paced plotand another triumph from the versatile Phillips. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
In the twilight of Queen Elizabeth's long reign, the court is abuzz with concern about the succession. The queen's handlers are especially determined to find out whether the heir apparent, James VI of Scotland, is a Protestant. Or is he really a Catholic at heart who will try to reestablish the "truth faith" once upon the throne, with all the mayhem that would entail for Britain? Enter Matthew Thatcher, alias Mahmoud Ezzedine, a physician from the sultan of Constantinople attending to the ailing queen and left behind when his fellow diplomats departed. Through the machinations of influential members of the court, Thatcher is eventually sent north to discover James's true faith, which he does by drawing on his vast knowledge of medicinal remedies when treating the king. VERDICT The indefatigably imaginative Phillips, whose works range from Prague, about Budapest, to The Tragedy of Arthur, which contains a Shakespearean play written by Phillips, offers historical fiction with aching contemporary overtones. Highly recommended, especially for those knowledgeable about the period and for anyone who enjoys a truly original yarn. [See Prepub Alert, 7/21/19.]--Edward Cone, New York
Excerpts
Excerpts
CHAPTER 1 In the Palace of Felicity, in Constantinople, in the land of the Turks, early in the Christian year 1591, viziers to Murad the Great, third of that name, Sultan of the Ottomans, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Caliph of Caliphs, dispatched an embassy to a far-off, sunless, primitive, sodden, heathen kingdom at the far cliffside edge of the civilized earth. The sultan chose as his ambassador a loyal and trusted man, but nobody of great importance, to negotiate with the people of that patch of damp turf. Still, one must send someone to discuss trade and passports and the repatriation of unlucky Turkish sailors captured by the pirate crews who cowered in the harbors of that barbarian island. Those pirates thrived under the protection of the island's capricious sultana, cruel in her poverty, weakness, fearful isolation, and unnatural state of unmarried womanly rule. She also begged for the Ottoman sultan's support against her enemies, locked as she was in a bloody and endless sectarian combat with others of her kind about some incomprehensible quarrel over their false religion. The sultan felt it was time to send someone competent to the island of the English to wring concessions from her queen. And so the ambassador and his entourage traveled to the end of the world. The ambassador, a eunuch who had been born a Christian in Portugal and recognized the truth of Mohammed when he was captured at the age of eleven, led a small retinue, only fourteen men: his chief adviser, a doctor of medicine, servants, scribes, guards. He carried for the island's sultana, among many other gifts, a pair of lions, a scimitar, a unicorn's horn, and ten English pirates captured by Turkish sailors. This last gift assured that the ambassador and his men were welcomed to London by a torchlight parade through the gawping crowds near St. Lawrence Jewry church, winding to the large house where they would live for five months before returning to Constantinople. Mahmoud Ezzedine, the doctor responsible for the health of the ambassador first and then of every man of the embassy after, had tried to avoid this journey, but his presence was specifically requested. He had enriched himself and gained a reputation, won favor and honor, wife and child, home and security, all from his carefully amassed medical knowledge. He had risen to become one of the physicians entrusted with the very bodies of the sultan and his family, and his life in Constantinople lacked for nothing. There was no pleasure in losing a year of his wife's company, of his son's growth, of attempting a second child. Despite a lack of success so far, he had enjoyed the process. And, nearly as important, there was no pleasure in being away from the royal family, whose health he protected and cherished even beyond his own. He had dared to ask an influential courtier if there were any possibility of another physician being sent in his place. The man said he would inquire, but he must have done so clumsily, for a few days later, Ezzedine was visited at home by Cafer bin Ibrahim, who would be the ambassador's chief adviser for the expedition. "Dr. Ezzedine," said Cafer, over coffee and figs brought by the doctor's translucently veiled wife, Saruca, to the courtyard of the house and served under the shade and pink flowers of the Judas trees. "It was I who suggested to the sultan that he send you to England. And he was enthusiastic that you should protect us all. And you would now refuse?" "Of course I would not dream of refusing." "I'm glad to hear you say it. I misunderstood some idiot at court who misrepresented your words and heart to me. You should be careful whom you entrust with them. May I take another fig?" The doctor's son, Ismail, cried for two nights after he learned of his father's approaching departure for Christian England. "I won't be gone so long as all that," he told Saruca as the boy sobbed himself to sleep. "I will bring him something English as a gift. It is gratifying to think I will be so missed." He reached for his wife's hand across the bed. "He is afraid you will not return," she said. "He told me he was afraid you will be eaten by lions." "I will reassure him. The English don't have lions." The next morning, however, the boy was in no mood to be condescended to. "I didn't say lions," he said, stamping a foot. "I said Lionheart. You are going to where Richard Lionheart came from." Ezzedine tried not to laugh. "But Lionheart died long ago. And all the Crusaders were defeated long ago. There are no more Crusaders." "But his people may still be like him. And want to hurt you." "I promise I will be safe," said Dr. Ezzedine, kissing the top of the boy's head. It smelled of something dusty but sweet, like a flower's pollen. Saruca told him the night before his departure, "It is bad that you go. I don't want to watch you leave. So I practice imagining it and accepting it. I don't want to curse your absence." She kissed him in the morning as he stood outside, the boy clinging to his leg. "I accept this," she said, before she began to weep and pulled the crying boy away. The doctor walked down to the sea. He tried not to look back but didn't succeed. Throughout their stay, the ambassador and his men had audiences with the English sultana at Greenwich and Nonsuch palaces and hosted her and her people in turn to feasts à la Turkeska at the ambassador's residence, where they slaughtered all their meat themselves in the correct manner. For months, official negotiations were conducted in the cold rooms of the queen's palaces or upon her green parklands. Conclusions were reached in matters of sea-lanes and free overland passages, the exchange of captured pirates/sailors, various immunities and protections for Englishmen voyaging in the empire of the Ottomans. Much of the diplomacy was a duel of imaginations, conceptions of events that had not yet occurred but were suddenly pressingly possible. "And if an Englishman traveling in Qustantiniyya should wish to convert to the religion of Mohammed?" asked the ambassador's chief adviser, Cafer bin Ibrahim. This particular question amused those of the English negotiators who had never left England but deeply troubled those English who had traveled, especially in Mahometan lands. There was much to be said for any religion that promised wealth, opportunity, and wives in this world. (This was a truth as obvious as air to the Turks, one they lived with daily. Back in Constantinople, bin Ibrahim, always hurriedly sold any of his Christian slaves who were considering converting to the true faith, or else he would have had to free them at a loss, enslavement of his co-religionists being illegal.) Conversely, the question arose of Turk merchants traveling within England and of their free and safe passage throughout the kingdom, of what protections the queen might guarantee a hypothetical Mahometan buyer of, say, tin. Could such a one reside unmolested in London? Or travel to mines farther inland? And pray to Allah and his saints as his law demanded, five times daily? Even when it was pointed out that Jews (who were obviously worse and more dangerous) sometimes were free to move about, the English found the prospect of a freely roaming Turk so astonishing and obviously unsanitary to the body politic that the topic was temporarily set aside. But then one of the queen's privy councillors, Robert Beale, pointed out that if (as the Turkish negotiators insisted) any Englishman in the Ottoman Empire who of free conscience wished to swear allegiance to Mohammed could not be prevented from doing so, then any Ottoman wishing to profess his devotion to Jesus Christ was similarly at liberty to do so while in England. The Ottoman ambassador readily agreed to this reciprocity, unable to conceive of any Ottoman who would see an advantage--spiritual or economic--in apostasy or, for that matter, take up permanent residence on this island. England was simply too poor and Christianity too unpromising in this life. After all, they were scarcely able to convince some of the English pirates to return from Constantinople. Even those in prison. Meanwhile, at the suggestion of Dr. Ezzedine, all the men of the embassy performed zakat by paying, as their wealth allowed them, for the release or well-being of Turkish prisoners held in England. Ezzedine went further and, under escort, searched in the darkest parts of London for a rumored community of Moors awaiting passports or funds to sail for happier places. Dr. Ezzedine would have given generously to these unfortunates, if he could have found them. Excerpted from The King at the Edge of the World: A Novel by Arthur Phillips All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
