The Moorland Murderers
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Londoner Jack Blackjack finds himself a stranger in a strange land when he’s accused of murder in rural Devon in this eventful Tudor mystery.
July, 1556. En route to France and escape from Queen Mary’s men, Jack Blackjack decides to spend the night at a Devon tavern, agrees to a game of dice – and ends up accused of murder. To make matters worse, the dead man turns out to have been the leader of the all-powerful miners who rule the surrounding moors – and they have no intention of waiting for the official court verdict to determine Jack’s guilt.
But who would frame Jack for murder . . . and why? Alone and friendless in a lawless land of cut-throats, outlaws and thieves, Jack realizes that the only way to clear his name – and save his skin – is to unmask the real killer. But knowing nothing of the local ways and customs, how is he to even begin? As Jack’s attempts to find answers stirs up a hornet’s nest of warring factions within the town, events soon start to spiral out of control . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1556, Jecks's middling sixth mystery featuring assassin Jack Blackjack (after 2020's Death Comes Hot) opens at an inn in Okehampton, Devon, where Blackjack has just beaten Daniell Vowell, the master of most of the miners in the region, playing dice. Blackjack is hoping to make it to France after fleeing London, where his master, a servant to Sir Thomas Parry, was recently arrested. Parry, comptroller to Lady Elizabeth (the future queen), was implicated in a plot against Queen Mary, Elizabeth's half-sister, and briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London. Anyone associated with Parry and Elizabeth is suspect. When Vowell is later fatally stabbed, Vowell's son accuses Blackjack of murder. Blackjack protests his innocence and claims that someone knocked him out before Vowell's murder, but he ends up facing a trial that could well lead to the gallows. The smart-alecky lead, who comes across as a Tudor-era Deadpool, is an acquired taste who doesn't impress as an investigator, and the entire episode is a sideshow to the political turmoil of the period. Jecks has done better.
