The Three Emperors: An Ethan Gage Adventure (Ethan Gage Adventures)
For those who haven’t met him already, here’s Ethan Gage: American diplomat and spy, adventurer, treasure seeker, protégé of Benjamin Franklin. Oh, and dead man—at least that’s what Gage is happy to let people believe for the moment. Having narrowly escaped the Battle of Trafalgar (see The Barbed Crown, 2013), Gage is now in Venice, trying to scrape together enough money to rescue his wife and son, who are being held captive in Bohemia. But little does Ethan know that his wife, Astiza, has been pressed into service by her captor, who’s keen to find a fabled alchemical process to turn metal into gold, not to mention locating the Brazen Head, the legendary (although possibly apocryphal) automaton that can see into the future. The first-person narration switches back and forth between Gage, chronicling his efforts to find his wife, and Astiza, recounting her own exploration into the mysteries of alchemy. Another rip-roaring nineteenth-century adventure that combines historical people and events with imaginative fiction. --David Pitt