Allen Kurzweil
The Grand Companion
Pbk published February 2003 by Arrow at £6.99
ISBN: 0-09-943685 X
Alexander Short is a stylish young reference librarian. With his job in jeopardy and his marriage coming apart, Alexander meets the improbably named Henry James Jesson III, a book-lover who hires the librarian for some after-hours research. His task: to complete a cabinet of curiosities chronicling the life of a mysterious eighteenth-century inventor. But as the investigation heats up, Alexander realizes there are many more secrets lurking in Jesson’s cloistered world than those found inside his elegant Manhattan town house... `Extraordinary... Compelling... The deeper the reader digs, the more he finds... this curious teasing tale will appeal to anyone with a love of books’ The Times
`Highly enjoyable ... a combination of ingenuity, emotional sympathy, verbal dexterity and sheer pace’ Financial Times
`Impressive... A compelling narrative [that] works strictly as a hi-tech thriller, owing as much to The Maltese Falcon as to The Name of the Rose... [has] the kind of urgent menace found in the best of contemporary crime’ Independent
`An intellectual delight . . . wonderfully offbeat... highly entertaining’ Daily Telegraph
'A wonderfully engaging literary thriller… Excellent' Sunday Express
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Anne SomersetThe Affair of the Poisons
Published September 2003 by Weidenfeld & Nicholson at £20.00
ISBN: 0 297 84216 1
Murder, infanticide and Satanism at the court of Louis XIV The Affair of the Poisons, as it became known, was an extraordinary episode that took place in France during the reign of Louis XIV. When poisoning and black magic became widespread, arrests followed. Suspects included those among the highest ranks of society. Many were tortured and numerous executions resulted.
Anne Somerset, whose last book, Unnatural Murder was also a story of true crime, albeit some sixty years earlier, shows that the Affair of the Poisons actually began with a murder when the Marquise de Brinvilliers was executed after being convicted of poisoning three members of her family.
In the French court of the period, where sexual affairs were numerous, ladies were not shy of seeking help from the murkier elements of the Parisian underworld, and fortune-tellers supplemented their dubious trade by selling poison.
It was not long before the authorities were led to believe that Louis XIV himself was at risk. With the chief of Paris police alerted, every hint of danger was investigated. Rumours abounded and it was not long before the King ordered the setting up of a special commission to investigate the poisonings and bring offenders to justice. No one, the King decreed, no matter how grand, would be spared having to account for their conduct.
The royal court was soon thrown into disarray. The Mistress of the Robes and a distinguished general were among the early suspects. But they paled into insignificance when the King’s mistress was incriminated. If, as was said, she had engaged in vile Satanic rituals and had sought to poison a rival for the King’s affections, what was Louis XIV to do? Anne Somerset has gone back to original sources, letters and earlier accounts of the affair. By the end of her account she reaches firm conclusions on various crucial matters. The Affair of the Poisons is an enthralling account of a sometimes bizarre period in French history. Praise for Elizabeth I
`The most balanced and impartial’ of all Elizabeth’s biographers. An excellent book’ Sunday Times
`The fullest and best biography of the queen since Sir John Neale’ TLS
`The writing is a delight’ Daily Telegraph Praise for Unnatural Murder
A gripping detective story. It tells us more about the corruption, debauchery and naked power-plays of seventeenth-century life than anything I have read’ Christopher Hudson, Daily Mail
‘One of the best historical whodunits’ Roy Strong, Sunday Times Praise for Ladies In Waiting
`Anne Somerset’s gossipy Ladies in Waiting provides a wealth of juicy anecdotal material about five centuries of court life from Henry VIII to Elizabeth II’ New York Times
About The Author Anne Somerset was born in 1955 and read History at King’s College London.
Her first book, published in 1980, was The Life and Times of William IV. This was followed by Ladies-in-Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present
Day and an acclaimed biography, Elizabeth 1. Her most recent work was the best-selling Unnatural Murder, an account of the sensational Overbury murder, which was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger award for non-fiction. Anne Somerset is married and lives in London with her husband and daughter.
Allen Kurzweil
The Grand Companion
Anne Somerset