Nicholas Hansard is a brilliant historical analyst, a genius at extracting the truth from forgotten documents. A professor at a small New England college, Hansard has a second, secret career with The White Group, a "consulting agency" with shadowy Washington connections. When Hansard's work exposes one of his closest friends, Allan Berenson, as a Soviet agent, and Berenson dies mysteriously, the connections seem all too clear. Shaken, Hansard turns away from secrets to investigate a manuscript that may be a lost play from Christopher Marlowe. Surely, he thinks, four hundred years is a safe distance from the events of the present. He is wrong. Allan Berenson's murder has set in motion a deadly chain reaction, as spies run for cover, traitors hide their tracks, and assassins stalk their victims. Berenson's lover—herself an unsuspected spy—seeks revenge by completing Berenson's final project: the theft of the West's most crucial military secret. Its use will forever change the balance of power in Europe. But the key to completing the plan is hidden in the Marlowe manuscript... and only Nicholas Mansard can find it. Pursued and manipulated by all sides, Hansard is caught in a crossfire where no loyalty, identity or motive is what it appears, and a name from the time of Elizabeth I will bring the world to the brink of war. The Scholars of Night is an extraordinary novel of technological espionage and human betrayal, weaving past and present into a web of unbearable suspense.