A Tip for the Hangman
A Novel
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4.0 • 19 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
An Elizabethan espionage thriller in which playwright Christopher Marlowe spies on Mary, Queen of Scots while navigating the perils of politics, theater, romance—and murder.
England, 1585. In Kit Marlowe's last year at Cambridge, he is approached by Queen Elizabeth's spymaster offering an unorthodox career opportunity: going undercover to intercept a Catholic plot to put Mary, Queen of Scots on Elizabeth's throne. Spying on Queen Mary turns out to be more than Kit bargained for, but his salary allows him to mount his first play, and over the following years he becomes the toast of London's raucous theater scene. But when Kit finds himself reluctantly drawn back into the world of espionage and treason, he realizes everything he's worked so hard to attain—including the trust of the man he loves—could vanish in an instant.
Pairing modern language with period detail, Allison Epstein brings Elizabeth's lavish court, Marlowe's colorful theater troupe, and the squalor of sixteenth-century London to vivid, teeming life. At the center of the action is Kit himself—an irrepressible, irreverent force of nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Epstein's diverting debut gallivants through Elizabethan England clutching the breeches of playwright Christopher Marlowe, here in service to the queen as a spy. Kit, as Marlowe is called, is rarely caught writing his "mighty line." He's too deep into espionage, uncovering Catholic conspiracies. Having infiltrated the household of Mary, Queen of Scots and foiling the Babington Plot, Kit has a crisis of conscience over Mary's execution. After he is caught spying by Catholic rebels, he gets out of the jam by claiming to be a double agent working on their behalf, then travels to the Netherlands to counterfeit gold coin for the Catholic cause. His Protestant minders track and arrest all involved, but while Kit's treasonous friends go to the gallows, he is set free. Epstein takes liberties with Kit's ultimate fate (the circumstances of his murder remain disputed), but in Kit she also creates a Marlowe too all-over-the-map to be plausible. Kit's lover, Tom, accuses him of seeking out danger, but rapid-fire POV changes necessary to advance the action-packed plot prevent the reader from getting a full sense of him, and the romance passages are the stuff of bodice rippers. Still, it's a fun escapade.
