The bones of Avalon

London: Corvus, 2010. Paperback. Good. Religious strife, Glastonbury legends, the bones of King Arthur and the cur se of the Tudors...can Renaissance man John Dee help the young Queen Elizab eth to avoid it? It is 1560. Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a y ear, the date for her coronation having been chosen by her astrologer, Dr J ohn Dee, at just 32 already famous throughout Europe as a mathematician and expert in the hidden arts. But neither Elizabeth nor Dee feel entirely sec ure. Both have known imprisonment for political reasons. The Queen is unpop ular with both Roman Catholics and the new breed of puritanical protestant. Dee is regarded with suspicion in an era where the dividing line between s cience and sorcery is, at best, indistinct. And the assignment he's been gi ven by the Queen's chief minister, Sir William Cecil, will blur it further: ride to the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, bring back King Arthur's bones. Th e mission takes the mild, bookish Dee to the tangled roots of English magic and the Arthurian legacy so important to the Tudors. Into unexpected viole nce, spiritual darkness, the breathless stirring of first love...and the co ld heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth. With him is his friend and fo rmer student, Robert Dudley, a risk-taker, a wild card...and possibly the Q ueen's secret lover. Dee is Elizabethan England's forgotten hero. A man for whom this world - even the rapidly-expanding world of the Renaissance - wa s never enough.