Queen Elizabeth I is dying, James I waiting to accede. But who will thrive, and who will fail, under the new king? Will it be the scholar Francis Bacon, whose brilliant mind is the envy of the court? Or his hated rival Edward Coke, already acclaimed as the greatest lawyer of his generation? The Winding Stair tells the gripping story of these two founders of our modern world and their bitter struggle for influence and power. It brings the palaces, parlours, parliaments and royal courts of Elizabethan and Jacobean England to life, giving a peerless view into the lives, thoughts and deeds of their protagonists. Combining humour, wit and imagination with deep research, this novel is a dazzling synthesis of history and fiction that takes the genre to new places: an epic tale of jealousy and intrigue, which also holds a darkened mirror to our own contemporary politics.