The Crucible
By Matt Lynn
The year is 1923. Sir Richard Hannay witnesses a murder on the ski slopes of Switzerland, but the local police seem intent on ignoring the crime. The fiancée of the murdered man tracks Hannay down bearing a ring engraved with mysterious runes, left to her by her dead fiancé. She begs him to help find the killer. Hannay is sent undercover on a mission to Europe to uncover the meaning of the ring. It emerges that the murder was just one piece of the puzzle, and Hannay suspects that his old nemesis, Otto von Schwabing, is pulling the strings behind the scenes. As he gets closer to unravelling the mystery, he finds himself in mortal peril. All around him, political unrest boils just beneath the surface as post-WWI Germany struggles to deal with its new, crushing poverty. An enigmatic, dangerous leader is gaining traction in the south of Germany. Will Hannay crack the code before the conspirators seize power? Or will a bloody coup plunge Europe into another war?