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.