This is a wonderful story! This multi-generational Tibetan family encourages the reader to travel vicariously with them as they leave their homeland and experience the inequalities that life brings to displaced individuals. The author offers, not only awareness of the struggles of the Tibetan people, but insight and knowledge into the strength and conviction of their religious beliefs and how these beliefs sustain them.

An historical thriller by definition is a dramatic story designed to hold the reader's interest with a high degree of intrigue, adventure or suspense. Halfway through this book i was still trying to get all the characters straight. The story has multiple plots involving multiple characters - religious strife, black magic, astrology, royal and non-royal political alliances, along with murder and mayhem. By the time the culprits and their motives were revealed I'd forgotten they were characters in the plot. To the author's credit, those responsible for the crimes were not revealed until the very end, but by that time Renaissance England, and its inhabitants, both good and bad had become very tiresome.

I enjoyed reading this book. It begins with the main character, Professor Sam Gaddis, becoming involved in a innocent review of letters, documents covering a famous team of Soviet spies who lived and worked in England/US post WW II.The plot behind this story within a story becomes increasingly sophisticated and intriguing as it unfolds. Sam Gaddis , is a very believable English professor who , as an expert in Soviet history, gets caught up his own spy game . Sam is believable as a very intelligent man, but one who is naive to the real spy game. The reader doesn't really get to put the puzzle together until almost the very end. Reminded me of Frederick Forsyth's intricate spy novels which I also enjoyed.