num_pages: 400
description: A compelling mystery blending the witch trials of the past with a contemporary case of academic intrigue from this brilliant well-loved novelist. Jade Green is a solicitor with her own practice Lost Causes that she runs from her London flat. She struggles to keep her business afloat and supplements her income by delivering for the local Chinese takeaway. Her life changes with a single phonecall. Dr Gilbert has been dismissed from his post teaching the history of science at the University of Wessex. Allegations have been made that he was corrupting the students with Satanism; the professor himself suspects the university to be controlled by a fundamentalist Christian sect. As Jade delves into this bizarre case she finds herself drawn into a seventeenth-century manuscript the original of which has been stolen from the Professor's briefcase at the university. It is The Memorial of Amyntas Boston a young woman  raised as a boy  who is awaiting trial for dabbling in the black arts and in alchemy. Taken into service by Mary Sidney she had fallen in love with her mistress and ultimately found herself betrayed by her. The two stories intertwine as Jade feels her life  her hidden identities and her secret love  mysteriously resonate with Amyntas's. In this sweeping novel Maureen Duffy combines the pleasures of detection with the mysteries of fraud alchemy early science and witchcraft. By turns passionate and drily witty this is an immensely compelling tale.
language: English
title: Alchemy
publisher: Harper Perennial