Then bizarre things start happening ... a Royal accident imperils the succession and fiery violence rocks London, mimicking Pepys's chronicles of seventeenth-century England.
Things get even more curious when the archivist who stumbled on the uncatalogued papers vanishes. Then a centuries-old scandal surfaces that could bring down the modern monarchy.
Soon Alex begins to suspect that the diaries may not have been penned by Pepys after all -- but by someone whose shocking actions may have altered the course of history....