John Shakespeare, brother of Will, former Intelligencer for Walsingham, finds himself drafted back into the spy business in this sequel to Martyr. Approached first by the malevolent McGunn, agent of Lord Essex, John is determined to refuse until contacted by Secretary Robert Cecil, who asks him to take Essex's commission and become a double agent. Reluctantly, John agrees, his skills creaky after five years' absence from the spy game.
There are many plotlines in this novel, each essential and intriguing and connected in some way, and Clements has succeeded in resolving them with style and a sure touch. There's the Catholic arc, as important politically as personally since John's wife, Catherine, adheres to the old religion, the danger of which drives a wedge between them; there's the Lost Colony of Roanoke; there's the question of Essex poisoning his wife to marry Arabella Stuart, the lady next in line of succession; there's the hold that McGunn has over Essex.
Clements gives his readers ground-level experience of Elizabethan England--detailed, fascinating and often appalling--as these various storylines arc towards their conclusions. In the process, the reader meets some extraordinary characters: loyal and resourceful Boltfoot Cooper, John's man; priest-hunter Richard Topcliffe, who'd dance a jig at the idea of feeding the whole Shakespeare clan to dogs--if he weren't such a Puritan; Joshua Peace, Searcher of the Dead (think Tudor M.E.), calm among his bodies. This work is the second in the John Shakespeare, Intelligencer series, and is reminiscent of C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series--not quite as grim, but just as superbly entertaining. --Judith Hawkins-Tillirson, proprietress, Wyrdhoard books, and blogger at Still Working for Books