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In The Barbed Crown, the sixth tale of rogue and adventurer Ethan Gage by William Dietrich, our hero returns to Paris and London. Against a background of imperial pomp and the gathering clouds of war, Gage plots revenge on Napoleon Bonaparte for the kidnap of his son.Paris, the "City of Lights," shines - but alongside its splendor is great squalor. Heroic patriotism rubs against mean ambition, while grand strategy and back-alley conspiracy are never far apart.While Ethan spies on the French court, his wife, Astiza, works to sabotage Napoleon's coronation using the Crown of Thorns, a legendary relic said to have come from the Crucifixion itself. But when Napoleon is crowned nonetheless, they flee to England.At Walmer Castle on the English coast, Gage joins a daring campaign by Smith, Fulton, rocket inventor William Congreve and smuggler Tom Johnstone to halt Napoleon's intended invasion of England - a campaign which leads Ethan to take a role in the Battle of Trafalgar itself .



About the Author

William Dietrich

I'm a novelist and non-fiction author of twenty-two books, the latest of which is "The Trojan Icon," the eighth in the series of Ethan Gage Napoleonic adventures. (February, 2016) . A related title to this series is "Napoleon's Rules: Life and Career Lessons from Bonaparte." (March, 2015.) This nonfiction examination of Napoleon's life and maxims is an inspiring and cautionary tale for leaders, entrepreneurs, officers, or anyone with ambition and curiosity.I published two books in the fall of 2014. One is my first young adult/adult thriller, "The Murder of Adam and Eve." This time-travel environmental-evolutionary tale set in prehistoric Africa has two 16-year-olds, Nick Brynner and Eleanor Terrell, trying to save our genetic ancestors from annihilation by an alien race. It's a coming of age story, survival story, love story, and environmental fable.The other is a nonfiction coffee table-type book called "The North Cascades: Finding Beauty and Renewal in the Wild Nearby." The Mountaineers Books publication has more than 200 photos and illustrations and is a gorgeous read.Meanwhile, my bestselling HarperCollins series of Ethan Gage adventures has sold into 28 languages. Other recent titles: "The Three Emperors," 2014, and "The Barbed Crown," 2013. All the Gage books are available in hardback, paper, and ebook versions.I began my writing career as a newspaper reporter in 1973, eventually sharing a Pulitzer at the Seattle Times for coverage of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. I also taught for five years at Western Washington University's Huxley College of the Environment.I published my first non-fiction book, "The Final Forest," in 1992. It was updated in 2010 to "The Final Forest: Big Trees, Forks, and the Pacific Northwest." It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Governor Writers Award.I followed that with "Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River." A new edition with a new introduction is planned for the fall of 2016.My first novel, "Ice Reich," came in 1998 and is a World War II thriller based on a real-life Nazi expedition to Antarctica. This bestseller is still available as an ebook.My other novels:"Getting Back." An eco-thriller set in the Australian Outback in the near future. Ebook."Dark Winter." A killer is on the loose among the personnel at America's South Pole base. Creepy! Ebook."Hadrian's Wall." Love, war, and conspiracy during the late Roman Empire. All formats."The Scourge of God." A young couple must survive the invasion of the empire by Attila the Hun. All formats."Blood of the Reich." A contemporary Seattle woman sees her car blown up and learns of her horrific connection to a 70-year-old Nazi conspiracy that will take her to Tibet and Germany. All formats.And the Ethan Gage novels:"Napoleon's Pyramids." Our American her



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