From the
New York Times
bestselling author of such classics as
The Daughters of Mars
,
Crimes of the Father
, and
Schindler's List
comes a work of historical fiction mastery in which an English lieutenant must stage a play starring the prisoners of the Australian penal colony he supervises.
Lieutenant Ralph Clark has received the most bizarre of commissions. In honor of the king's birthday, Clark is charged with staging a production of the George Farquhar comedy
The Recruiting Officer
. What's more, as Clark supervises the penal colony of Sydney Cove, Australia at the very end of the late-nineteenth-century British Empire's rule, he must use his prisoners as the cast and production crew. Based on the lieutenant’s real diaries,
The Playmaker
is a work of true genius by one of the most notable names in historical fiction.