The Queen’s Avenger
This is a powerful tale set between the years of widow Mary Stewart’s arrival from France as Queen of Scotland and her escape to England from her island prison on Loch Leven.
Mary’s story entranced me as a teenager and still does despite many retellings. This time the author has used a fictional Bavarian abbot to tell it after he dies in a Bavarian monastery, and his manuscripts describing his part in the betrayals of Mary of Scotland. The result is a thrilling ‘now’ and ‘then’ story, though ‘now’ is the late 1590s. But that distance provides insight. The abbot’s secret writings are found by the monk Gunther, whose discovery places him in grave danger.
Through these papers, the novel explores Catholic Mary’s conflict with many of her earls and clergy over Calvinism, her marriage to Darnley, the strange nature of this union, betrayal by those close to her, the murder of Rizzio, and both Darnley’s and Bothwell’s involvement in her fate. It is a thoroughly researched novel, and because of the imaginary Gunther and his clandestine discovery of a mysterious set of codices, I was pleased to see an author’s note explaining the novel’s research. It is an enlightening note.
This is a pacy novel filled with nuances regarding Mary’s inner conflicts. Both Gunther’s story and the manuscripts make for tense, colourful and engaging reading. Many scenes really are incredibly vivid, in particular Mary’s imprisonment on Loch Leven and her escape. Characters just leap from the page, all fabulous re-creations. The result is an atmospheric, thrilling novel, one that is well-structured and extremely cleverly written. I sincerely hope there will be sequels. Any lover of Elizabethan thrillers will enjoy this novel, which is vivid, strong and faithful to known history.
