The unicorn hunt - Dorothy Dunnett

The exquisitely-researched standalone prequel series to Dorothy Dunnett's revered Lymond Chronicles, following the ancestors of Francis Crawford of Lymond in Continental Europe.

The Unicorn Hunt is Book Five in The House of Niccolo series.

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'Rich, newly wed, with a palatial banking house, a busy fleet, a small army, why should Nicholas vander Poele choose to travel to Edinburgh?'

That is the question on everyone's lips in the Autumn of 1468 - especially those of his enemy, Simon de St Pol of Kilmirren, who seeks nothing less than the destruction of the House of Niccolo and its cunning head.

But Nicholas soon proves that there are very good mercantile reasons for expanding his trading empire into the north. They also help to conceal his attempts to discover the true father of the child his vengeful wife insists is not his own.

From Scotland to the Tyrol, Cairo to Cyprus, Nicholas pursues a truth that many fear will destroy him and everything he has tried to build . . .

'Terrifically exciting. Some wonderful set-pieces and a cliff-hanging climax' The Times