Black Death

May 15, 2017
Set in 1590, Trow’s delightful eighth Kit Marlowe mystery (after 2015’s Secret World) finds the playwright, poet, and spy looking into the death of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s spymaster. Marlowe suspects poisoning, the only clue a scant trace of residue in the goblet that Walsingham drank from just before his demise. Marlowe juggles the demands of theater owners for new material with his investigations, which often entail galloping around the country to meet with the outstanding minds of the period, including John Dee (famed occultist, mathematician, and sometime advisor to the queen) and Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland (aka the Wizard Earl). Many other real people sashay though the book, including Sir Walter Raleigh, impresario Philip Henslowe, poet Thomas Watson, and Will Shaxsper, “a second-rate actor and a fourth-rate playwright.” Insights into political chicanery, the rise of science over magic, and atavistic theatrical bitchery propel readers ever onward.

June 1, 2019
It's 1592, and the Black Death is rampant in London. But playwright and sometime amateur detective Kit Marlowe has other things on his mind. He's desperately trying to finish his latest play in time for its premiere at the Rose Theatre when a series of very odd things happens. First, an old enemy, Robert Greene, sends Kit a letter beseeching him to find out who is trying to murder Greene. Then the queen decides to shut down every theater in London to prevent the plague from spreading; the Rose's stage manager, Kit's friend Tom Sledd, goes missing; Sir Robert Cecil, the queen's spymaster, orders Kit to find out who killed his father's beloved nursemaid; and Kit finds himself reluctantly cast as the savior of Simon Forman, a man who calls himself a shaman but is, in fact, a dangerous sham. Despite the sometimes confusing multiple plots, readers will find themselves intrigued by Trow's fine tale, which is full of ribald humor, high-spirited adventure, intriguing twists, and realistic period ambience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2017
After Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth I's spymaster, dies, apparently of apoplexy, Walsingham's right-hand man, Nicholas Faunt, convinced his master was poisoned, turns to playwright, sometime spy, and brilliant amateur sleuth Christopher Marlowe to prove his case. Reluctantly, Marlowe takes on the case and soon discovers a viper's next of suspects, including Robert Cecil, who has eyed the spymaster role for years. Could his ambition have been at the root of Walsingham's murder? Marlowe is also looking closely at a group called the School of the Night, some of whose members, including Sir Walter Raleigh, have deep knowledge of poisons and the dark arts as well as motives for wanting Walsingham dead. As always, Trow provides fascinating period authenticity, a crackling plot, strong characters, and plenty of twists. Must reading for devotees of Elizabethan crime.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

May 27, 2019
Trow makes the most of his setting—1592 London beset by the bubonic plague—in his atmospheric 10th whodunit featuring Christopher Marlowe (after 2018’s Queen’s Progress). Marlowe, a playwright and intelligence operative, is surprised to receive a letter from Robert Greene, a university scholar, whom he knew—and disliked—while they were students at Cambridge. Greene is dead by the time Marlowe reads the letter, in which Greene says he believes someone is trying to kill him. Despite their past antipathy, Marlowe feels obligated to pursue the matter and undertakes an unofficial exhumation. His resolve to find Greene’s killer is strengthened when Marlowe’s friend, magician John Dee, reports that the remains Marlowe brought him to test reveal evidence of poison. Meanwhile, fear of the spread of the Black Death forces the government into extreme measures, including closing down all the playhouses, but when Marlowe seeks to overturn the decree, his employer, Elizabeth I’s spymaster, Robert Cecil, is, for some reason, more interested in the mystery of Greene’s death. This is a strong entry in a series that’s gotten better with each book.

May 15, 2019
As the plague grips London, Christopher Marlowe tries to solve the murder of a theatrical rival. In 1592, "The Pestilence" is beginning to creep into the city of London. Playwright and sometime sleuth Kit Marlowe (Queen's Progress, 2018, etc.) is preparing a new production, The Massacre at Paris, when he gets an eerie letter from playwright Robert Greene, who's recently died under mysterious circumstances. The intensely curious Marlowe can't help visiting Greene's boardinghouse and even digging up his grave. His conclusion: "Murder, most foul." Marlowe enlists the aid of the Queen's Magus, John Dee, in confirming that Greene was poisoned. Even with the approaching opening of his play, Marlowe's driven by his compulsion to learn the truth about the death of Greene, who'd been increasingly eccentric and reclusive in recent years. Marlowe revisits Cambridge, where he and Greene were fellow students, for some insight. Dr. Gabriel Harvey claims to have been in attendance shortly after Greene died, reportedly from an overindulgence of wine and herring. But when Marlowe explains that Greene was poisoned, Harvey's reaction is odd. The deeper significance of this reaction is impressed on Marlowe when, shortly after their meeting, he's attacked and passes out. From that point on, there's no turning back from his search for the truth, which is aided considerably by his chance meeting with Richard, an industrious orphan lad. Meanwhile, as plague creeps into the city, the theaters are closed, threatening Marlowe's livelihood. Trow's 10th Elizabethan mystery delights with its knowledge of 16th-century theater and its large cast of real-life characters like William Cecil, Richard Burbage, and the murder victim himself. The mystery is twisty, unpredictable, and ultimately satisfying.

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