Eleventh Hour
A Tudor mystery featuring Christopher Marlowe
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Christopher Marlowe plays the role of sleuth to discover who killed the queen's spymaster in this "bawdy, witty . . . historically informed" Elizabethan mystery (Kirkus Reviews).
April, 1590. When the queen's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, dies of a stroke, the sudden event leaves a dangerous power vacuum in her majesty's court. Walsingham's former right-hand man, Nicholas Faunt, believes he was poisoned. And he calls upon the poet and playwright Christopher "Kit" Marlowe to discover who killed him.
To get to the bottom of this perplexing mystery, Kit must consult England's leading scientists and thinkers. But as he questions the members of the so-called School of Night, the playwright-turned-spy becomes convinced that at least one of them is hiding a deadly secret. If he is to outwit the most enquiring minds in Europe and unmask the killer within, Kit must devise an impossibly ingenious plan. Good thing he has a knack for formulating plots.
"As always, Trow provides fascinating period authenticity, a crackling plot, strong characters, and plenty of twists." —Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
