From Publishers Weekly

Slightly overbalanced by dense, lush descriptions, Duncan's elaborate sequel to 2007's The Alchemist's Apprentice finds footing in intricate plots and conspiracies. Able swordsman Alfeo Zeno, a brash young noble serving as Nostradamus's apprentice, provides a firsthand account of murder and romance in an alternate 16th-century Venice. This time the mystery centers around coded messages from an enemy agent, with Nostradamus and Zeno aiming first to crack the code and then to find the spy through a combination of magic and Holmesian investigation and deduction. Zeno's chatty narration breathes life into the city as he describes its political and social structure. The level of detail occasionally stifles the flow of Duncan's prose, an effect offset by the energy of the twisting plot. The only snag is the somewhat superfluous element of the fantastic, which adds little to this tale of interpersonal intrigue. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

The even more intriguing sequel to The Alchemist’s Apprentice (2007) is a mystery solved by the clairvoyant and sage Nostradamus and his apprentice, Alfeo Zeno. An ordinary case of a missing girl turns deadly serious when Venice’s Council of Ten asks Nostradamus to unmask a spy. The only clues lie in intercepted messages in a cipher that hasn’t been decoded. Duncan’s alternate late Renaissance Venice is wonderfully drawn and quite believable. The characters are a bit archetypal at first, which is plausible at a time and place in which public behavior was highly restricted. Duncan uses action to show what lies beneath public deportment. --Frieda Murray