Checkmate

“Exciting, dangerous, fascinating.”
—The Boston Globe

“[Dunnett’s] hero. . .is as polished and perceptive as Lord Peter Wimsey and as resourceful as James Bond.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Vivid, engaging, densely plotted. . . . Dunnett is a master of suspense and misdirection.”
—The New York Times

“A masterpiece of historical fiction.”
—The Washington Post

“[Lymond] is arguably the perfect romantic hero.”
—The Guardian

“Dorothy Dunnett is one of the greatest talespinners since Dumas . . . breathlessly exciting.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Dunnett is a name to conjure with. Her work exemplifies the best the genre can offer.”
—Christian Science Monitor

“Ingenious and exceptional . . . its effect brilliant, its pace swift and colorful and its multi-linear plot spirited and absorbing.”
—Boston Herald

“Dunnett evokes the sixteenth century with an amazing richness of allusion and scholarship, while keeping a firm control on an intricately twisting narrative. She has another more unusual quality . . . an ability to check her imagination with irony, to mix high romance with wit.”
—Sunday Times (London)

“A very stylish blend of high romance and high camp. Her hero, the enigmatic Lymond, [is] Byron crossed with Lawrence of Arabia. . . . He moves in an aura of intrigue, hidden menace and sheer physical daring.”
—Times Literary Supplement (London)

“With shrewd psychological insight and a rare gift of narrative and descriptive power, Dorothy Dunnett reveals the color, wit, lushness . . . and turbulent intensity of one of Europe’s greatest eras.”
—Raleigh News and Observer