Abbess Hildegard may consider herself "just a nun with no useful skills or connections," yet her loyalty and intelligence have brought her to the attention of King Richard II himself--not the safest place to be, when the king has enemies on all sides.

Autumn 1386. Hildegard of Meaux a Cistercian Abbess with a keen instinct for crime solving is accompanying the Archbishop of York, to London for the opening of Parliament. While packing to leave, the Archbishop s saucier is found brutally murdered in an ale vat and the culprit must be one of the Archbishop s party. The journey from York to London is fraught with more deadly surprises, and it becomes clear to Hildegard that this sinister plot may also involve King Richard. Traitors, murderers, noblemen and madmen come together to create a puzzling scheme that only Hildegard can solve.

In this second installment in the New York Times bestselling series from Edgar Award winner James Ponti, the young group of spies returns for another international adventure perfect for fans of Spy School and Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls. After thwarting a notorious villain at an eco-summit in Paris, the City Spies are gearing up for their next mission. Operating out of a base in Scotland, this secret team of young agents working for the British Secret Intelligence Service’s MI6 division have honed their unique skills, such as sleight of hand, breaking and entering, observation, and explosives. All of these allow them to go places in the world of espionage where adults can’t. Fourteen-year-old Sydney is a surfer and a rebel from Bondi Beach, Australia. She’s also a field ops specialist for the City Spies. Sydney is excited to learn that she’ll be going undercover on the marine research vessel the Sylvia Earle. But things don’t go exactly as planned, and while Sydney does find herself in the spotlight, it’s not in the way she was hoping. Meanwhile, there’s been some new intel regarding a potential mole within the organization, offering the spies a lead that takes them to San Francisco, California. But as they investigate a spy who died at the Botanical Gardens, they discover that they are also being investigated. And soon, they’re caught up in an exciting adventure filled with rogue missions and double agents! This mission is hot! The City Spies are a go!

In November 1382, the month of the dead, Abbess Hildegard rides out for York from the Abbey of Meaux. This is no ordinary journey—it is a time of rival popes, a boy king, and a shaky peace in the savage aftermath of Wat Tyler's murder—and Hildegard has embarked on a perilous mission to try to secure the future of her priory. Traveling alone, she discovers danger, encountering first a gibbet with five bloodied corpses and then the body of a youth, brutally butchered. Who was the boy, how was he connected to the men hanging from the gibbet, and what do these gruesome deaths mean? Hildegard is determined to uncover the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. When even her childhood home, Castle Hutton, turns out not to be a safe haven from murder, Hildegard realizes she will have to summon all of her courage and wisdom to counter the dark forces that threaten her friends and family as well as her country.

When George Washington beat a hasty retreat from New York City in August 1776, many thought the American Revolution might soon be over. Instead, Washington rallied—thanks in large part to a little-known, top-secret group called the Culper Spy Ring. He realized that he couldn’t defeat the British with military might, so he recruited a sophisticated and deeply secretive intelligence network to infiltrate New York. Drawing on extensive research, Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger have offered fascinating portraits of these spies: a reserved Quaker merchant, a tavern keeper, a brash young longshoreman, a curmudgeonly Long Island bachelor, a coffeehouse owner, and a mysterious woman. Long unrecognized, the secret six are finally receiving their due among the pantheon of American heroes.

“A thrilling, challenging and educational book . . . examines the roles of spies such a Edith Cavell, Mata Hari, Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan” (Pennant Magazine). Women spies have rarely received the recognition they deserve. They have often been trivialized and, in cinema and popular fiction, stereotyped as vamps or dupes. The reality is very different. As spies, women have played a critical role during wartime, receiving and passing on vital information, frequently at considerable risk. Often able to blend into their background more easily than their male counterparts, women have worked as couriers, transmitters, and with resistance fighters, their achievements often unknown. Many have died. Ann Kramer describes the role of women spies during wartime, with particular reference to the two world wars. She looks at why some women chose to become spies, their motives, and backgrounds. She looks at the experience of women spies during wartime, what training they received, and what skills they needed. She examines the reality of life for a woman spy, operating behind enemy lines, and explores and explodes the myths about women spies that continue until the present day. The focus is mainly on Britain but also takes an international view as appropriate. “Tells the often surprising stories of some of the women who chose to become spies and to serve their country . . . An excellent work.” —The Great War Magazine

"Highly recommended for fans of medieval mysteries." - Library Journal York, 1385. Just as the Mystery Plays are about to unfold, a young woman witnesses a terrible crime and turns to Abbess Hildegard of Meaux for protection. In The Law of Angels, Cassandra Clark once again shows us the human side of history, giving readers new reason to follow Publishers Weekly's rallying cry: "Medievalists rejoice!"