The Third Richard Karelius Adventure
Vienna, 1809. At the end of yet another victorious campaign against the Hapsburgs, the Emperor Napoleon holds court at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. Whilst peace negotiations are in progress, a confusing array of foreign diplomats are engaged in spying on one another. Amongst them are the Anglo-Prussian gentleman spy Richard Karelius, and his friend Farkas Aranyos. Add a couple of femmes fatales posing as Karelius’s recent love interest Charlotte von Moltke, plus the genuine article herself, and confusion is rife.
As the French Emperor takes it into his head to play a game of chess against the mysterious automaton player known as ‘the Turk,’ Karelius is persuaded by its owner to conceal himself inside and make its moves. Beating Napoleon is no problem, for the Emperor is a very bad player. Far greater risks are those of discovery, and the near-suffocation involved in hiding within the machine.
No sooner has Karelius surmounted this ordeal, than he finds himself lured to a duel to the death arranged by a woman whose vindictiveness borders on insanity. Meanwhile he has to cope with counter-espionage from the Emperor’s allies, both honourable, in the person of his perennial opponent Jacques Thiercelin, and the more dubious machinations of Joseph Fouché’s secret police.
Karelius’s most dangerous adventure yet, with villainous plots against him, both political and personal.