"Baroque, Byzantine and beautiful--not to mention bold. An enthralling puzzle picture of a book" --M. R. Carey, author of the best-selling The Girl With All the Gifts

Four and a half centuries later, cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I and still bound by its ancient laws, Rotherweird's independence is subject to one disturbing condition: no one, but no one studies the town or its history.

Then an Outsider arrives, a man of unparalleled wealth and power, enough to buy the whole of Rotherweird--deeply buried secrets and all...