The year is 475 BCE, and across the Persian Empire a civil war begins. The royal Edict of Destruction has given license for theft, kidnapping, and murder, prelude to annihilating an entire people - three million Persian souls. Persia is desperate for a hero. "The Queen & the Spymaster" tells the story of the unlikely champions of Ancient Persia, and of a thousand--year vendetta that presages modern historical events in Iran and Afghanistan. Our palace drama presents a fascinating and terrifying world-within-a-world, and takes place over the course of two decades in the Achaemenid or Persian dynasty. We read of the personal and political rivalries in the royal court of Persia between the king's vizier and an ambitious minister. Of two beautiful queens, one of whom dares to disobey the king and disappears without a trace, and of a second queen who is not who she pretends to be. And through it all, we read of a king who alternately appears foolish and fierce, pandering and paranoid, manipulative and murderous.

The global backdrop for this fast-paced story of palace intrigue is the ancient Near East of the mid-fifth century BCE. At the time our story commences, the world powers - Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, and Greece - have been engaged in a centuries-long battle for world domination. Readers are transported to the exotic fortress city of Susa, the imperial palace, and the royal harem, where truth wears a mask. Rapoport meticulously describes a royal court populated by an intricate shadow-world of spies and informants. A sinister brotherhood with orders to draw a target on the king's back. Rival cabinet ministers who command private armies. An orphaned girl with a gift for languages and an innate political intuition. A queen who, unbeknownst to all, is a secret agent.

And the shrewd tactician who controls her. "The Queen & the Spymaster," a thrilling novel, tells the Esther story you never knew.