Excerpt from Edward Trencom's Nose by Giles Milton, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

‘Why, of course,’ he thought, with a tingling sense of excitement. ‘’Tis certainly the sign of which she spoke. This must be the sign. It has at long last come to pass, just as she promised it would.’

No sooner had Humphrey concluded that the fire was a message from on high than he found a rush of ideas swift-footing themselves through the overheated chambers of his brain. Within a very short space of time, and in absolute disregard of either practicality or logic, he decided upon a dramatic and quite unexpected course of action.

‘I shall go to Constantinople,’ he said to himself with a vigorous nod of his head. ‘Yes, indeed. That’s surely what my mother wanted me to do. I shall put these charred ruins into the capable hands of brother John and seek my destiny in Constantinople.’

And so he would. But little did he know that in following the sign and making his voyage, Humphrey was to spark a most catastrophic train of events – one that would not reach its nemesis until the spring of 1969, precisely 303 years and nine generations after his hasty and unexpected departure. It would fall to a certain Edward Trencom, a direct descendant of the precipitate Humphrey, to deal with the terrible consequences of his decision.

Copyright © 2007 by Giles Milton. All rights reserved.