The Temple

Details: By Tom Grundner

1798

It's 1798 and Sir Sidney Smith is languishing in "The Temple," France's maximum security prison. For the past two years he had been running the Agence de Paris - Britain's primary spy ring in France - from his cell. But the authorities are starting to close in. It's time for Sir Sidney to leave; but, to do so, he must stage one of the most spectacular prison breaks in history.

Arriving back in England, Sir Sidney is welcomed as a national hero; but he is far from comfortable in that role. It is with relief, therefore, that he receives a set of orders sending him to Portsmouth for further duty. What he didn't know was that his new duty would involve working with a ner-do-well itinerant musician, by the name of William Parish-who happens to be a genius at breaking codes.

Napoleon is massing ships, troops, and supplies at Toulon and a number of other ports. He is clearly planning an invasion; but an invasion of who, where and when, no one knows. The key is a captured message that Parish and Smith must break, but it's encoded in a way that has never been seen before.

From a dreary prison in Paris, to the opulent palaces of Constantinople, to the horror of the Battle of the Nile-The Temple will take you on a wild ride through 18th Century history.