It was the stunned, pale look of bad news. The call was from Rabbi Jonathan Levine, Decker's recently discovered half brother. There has been a murder in Jonathan's family; his brother-in-law, a Hassidic Jew and former drug addict, was found naked in a seedy Manhattan hotel, a single gunshot wound to his head. And his niece, fifteen-year-old Shaynda, is missing ... In a desperate bid to track down the missing girl, Decker finds himself in an alien city and a maze of deceit and danger, on a twisted journey that takes him from the darkened slums of New Jersey and the deserted industrial streets of New York, to the hidden meeting places of Hassidic outcasts.

Rebecca Lopez enjoys a life of privilege in Elizabeth's England—yet she guards secrets she dares not reveal. The beautiful, tempestuous daughter of the queen's own physician, Rebecca is also a converso —a Jew who practices her prohibited religion clandestinely—helping others of her banned faith escape persecution and death. Her insatiable hunger for excitement often takes her to the bustling streets of London in male garb to experience the kind of adventure available only to men. But one such outing is leading her into a dangerous viper's nest built of intrigue and foul murder, in the company of a dashing young actor who inflames her romantic passions even as he escorts her toward peril...a charming and fearless would-be playwright who calls himself Will Shakespeare.