1635: Murder and Music. Music . . . It's been said that musicians live for the next new sound. Well, the musicians of Europe were presented with the biggest new sound ever when the Ring of Fire brought the future back to 1631. What will the court musicians think when they hear Bach, Stravinsky, and the Beatles? What will the street and tavern musicians think when faced with Johnny Cash, Metallica, and Nirvana? Things don't go smoothly for Marla Linder and her friends. And Murder . . . The Thirty Years War was an 'interesting' time to be alive, in the proverbial Chinese curse sense of the word. Then Grantville arrived from the future, bringing technology and philosophies that set European civilization on its ear. But that's not all that came back with Grantville. Imagine trying to establish modern police procedures in a time where neither the powers-that-be nor the people underneath them provide much support. Up-timer Byron Chieske and his down-timer partner Gotthilf Hoch walk some mean streets and lonely roads. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

A new addition to the multiple New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series. New York Times Best Selling Series Eric Flint and David Carrico serve up the latest entry in the best-selling alternate history saga of them all, the Ring of Fire! After carving a place for itself in war-torn 17th century Europe, citizens of the modern town of Grantville, West Virginia take on a murderous conspiracy of operatic proportions in Magdeburg, the capital of the United States of Europe.It is the year 1636. The United States of Europe, the new nation formed by an alliance between the King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and the West Virginians hurled back in time by a cosmic accident, is on the verge of civil war. His brain injured in the war with Poland, the USE's emperor Gustavus Adolphus is no longer in command. Enter Swedish chancellor Oxenstierna, a leader of aristocratic reaction against democracy. His goal, to assemble the forces of the hidebound ruling class in Berlin and drown the revolution in a bloodbath. In Magdeburg, the capital of the USE, Mike Stearns' wife Rebecca Abrabanel is organizing popular resistance to Oxenstierna's plot. As part of the resistance, the American musician Marla Linder and her company of down-time musical partners are staging an opera that will celebrate the struggle against oppression. Princess Kristina, the heir to the USE's throne, is now residing in Magdeburg and is giving them her support and encouragement. But another plot is underway—this one right in the heart of the capital itself, and with murder as its method. The only people standing in the way are a crippled boy and the boxing champion who befriended him, and an unlikely pair of policemen. Can the American detective Byron Chieske and his down-timer partner Gotthilf Hoch thwart the killers before they succeed in their goal? About 1636: The Devil's Opera: "Another engaging alternate history from a master of the genre" Booklist ". . . an old-style police-procedural mystery, set in 17th century Germany... the threads . . . spin together . . . to weave an addictively entertaining story... a strong addition to a fun series." Daily News of Galveston County About Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series: "This alternate history series is 'a landmark'" Booklist "[Eric] Flint's 1632 universe seems to be inspiring a whole new crop of gifted alternate historians." Booklist "reads like a technothriller set in the age of the Medicis" Publishers Weekly

Magdeburg, the capital of the newly-formed United States of Europe, has a dark and bloody history. Most of the city and its population were destroyed when the imperialist army ran amok after capturing the city in May of 1631. The ancient Gothic cathedral was one of the few structures that survived more-or-less intact. Once the Swedish king Gustav Adolf drove out the imperialists and established the USE, Magdeburg began to recover—and then grow at an astonishing rate. New industries inspired by the technology of the time-transplanted Americans of Grantville are turning the city into a boom town, with immigrants from all over central Europe pouring in. A boom town is full of hope and aspiration—but it’s also a place that generates its own darkness and chaos. The city’s fledgling police force is scrambling to get control over the growing crime and violence. Sometimes it succeeds—but often it doesn’t. And such failures bring down the might of the city’s powerful revolutionary Committees of Correspondence, whose leader Gunther Achterhof can match any criminal’s ruthlessness. Musicians murdered, new and brutal religious cults arising, bombings and arson, spies and informers and those hunting them—these are only some of the ingredients in the reborn city of light and darkness.