Excerpt from A Prisoner in Malta by Phillip DePoy, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The noise momentarily distracted the men attacking Lopez, who used the distraction to his advantage, stabbing one of the men in the chest, his rapier plunging deep into the man's rib cage.

The other man, shortest of the lot, suddenly realizing that he was alone, surveyed the scene, smiled, turned, and began to run as fast as he could in the same direction as the squealing horse.

Only then did Marlowe look around, get his bearings, and take in the landscape.

The coach had stopped in a deserted field close to a grove of crabapple trees heavy with early fruit. In the distance the River Cam could be seen, with its lush fringe of ferns. There were wheeling clouds in the sky, high and white as milk. The day was ending, but the sun was gold, still an hour before setting.

"It's a lovely spot for an ambush," Marlowe observed, nearly to himself.

"Were you playing dead in the coach?" Lopez asked, trying to catch his breath.

"Yes."

"Why?" Lopez put away his rapier.

"I'm not sure," Marlowe answered. "Maybe I hesitated because I felt badly about how I treated Pygott. Or maybe it was just a game. I don't know. Where's the coachman?"

"Dead, over there, other side," Lopez said, breathing hard. "Come here for a moment, would you?"

Marlowe strode toward Lopez, but stopped a few feet short.

"That man," Marlowe gasped, staring at the one Lopez had stabbed in the chest. "I know that man!"

"Yes," said Lopez, his rapier still out.

"He came to see me earlier this very week." Marlowe stared down at the unmoving figure. "He wanted me to work for the Catholic Church."

"I know." Lopez finally put away his weapon. "These are the Pope's men. They wanted you to spy for the Vatican."

"No," Marlowe said, "it was clerical, they only wanted me to—that man, he works for my father, in Canterbury. Or so he said; I'd never met him. He only wanted me to find something of importance to my father and then…"

But Marlowe's voice trailed off as he realized that he had been duped.

"Yes, it was a test," Lopez said. "That would have been the beginning of your—our Papal espionage."

"But I turned them down," Marlowe said uncertainly.

"Yes, well, the Pope is the sort of person who never accepts anything but agreement with his dicta. Which is why he sent these men after our coach."

"What did they want?"

Lopez stared at them. "They wanted the money that the Pope would pay them to stop our coach."

"No, I mean what was their object in stopping us?"

"Oh, to kill us," Lopez answered quickly.

"Kill us? Why? Just because I said no?"

"Perhaps because the Pope has an inkling—or information—concerning the importance of—concerning why you have been summoned by the Privy Council. And why we are riding in Her Majesty's second-best coach."

Marlowe glared at the bleeding ruffians. "But, these men—they're idiots. I mean to say: they don't seem like spies or agents or—Christ, Lopez, look at them! This is the best the Pope can do?"

"These are hired roisters, men happy to make a farthing to kill a cat. They are only the first wave. There will be more, many more—and better—before we're done."

Excerpted from A Prisoner in Malta by Phillip DePoy. Copyright © 2016 by Phillip DePoy. Excerpted by permission of Minotaur Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.