A true tale of greed, lust, deceit, theft, charlatanry, kidnapping, and assassination in the final years of Marie Antoinette’s court.

In 1785, a sensational trial began in Paris that would divide the country and captivate Europe. A prominent Catholic cardinal stood accused of forging the queen’s signature to steal the most expensive piece of jewelry in Europe: Marie Antoinette’s diamond necklace. The revelations from the trial would send the French monarchy headfirst into a bloody revolution.

In How to Ruin a Queen, award-winning author Jonathan Beckman tells of political machinations and enormous extravagance; of kidnappings, prison breaks, and assassination attempts; of hapless French police in disguise, reams of lesbian pornography, and a duel fought with poisoned pigs. It is a detective story, a courtroom drama, a tragicomic farce, and a study of credulity and self deception in the Age of Enlightenment.