In The Barbed Crown,
the sixth tale of rogue and adventurer Ethan Gage by William Dietrich,
our hero returns to Paris and London. Against a background of imperial
pomp and the gathering clouds of war, Gage plots revenge on Napoleon
Bonaparte for the kidnap of his son.
Paris, the “City of Lights,”
shines – but alongside its splendor is great squalor. Heroic patriotism
rubs against mean ambition, while grand strategy and back-alley
conspiracy are never far apart.
While Ethan spies on the French
court, his wife, Astiza, works to sabotage Napoleon’s coronation using
the Crown of Thorns, a legendary relic said to have come from the
Crucifixion itself. But when Napoleon is crowned nonetheless, they flee
to England.
At Walmer Castle on the English
coast, Gage joins a daring campaign by Smith, Fulton, rocket inventor
William Congreve and smuggler Tom Johnstone to halt Napoleon’s intended
invasion of England – a campaign which leads Ethan to take a role in the
Battle of Trafalgar itself…