The Queen’s Lies: A Novel (An Agents of the Crown Novel, 4)
Book four in the author’s Agents of the Crown series finds renowned alchemist and sometime-spy, Dr. John Dee, up to his neck in deceit and double-dealing as a power struggle for the crown of England unfolds. It is 1585. Mary Queen of Scots has been locked up by Elizabeth I for eighteen years when yet another plot to assassinate the English queen is uncovered—leading to more trouble ahead for Mary. Elizabeth’s private secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, has intercepted correspondence that implicates the Scottish queen, and he would like nothing better than to try her for treason. However, Elizabeth has other concerns, and a devious plan that only gradually becomes clear after she dispatches Dee’s wife with a mysterious court lady to attend Mary. At the same time, Dee is battling danger from all sides before he can join his wife: he is robbed, his plans for a secret weapon are stolen, his home ransacked, his cook murdered, and his son kidnapped.
This Elizabethan-era thriller moves along at a brisk pace with short chapters, shifting points of view and colorful language. Not to mention murder and mayhem on every page, although the author’s lighthearted touch keeps the story from taking itself too seriously. The dilemma facing Elizabeth is woven into the plot with poignant urgency. Namely, the threat that Mary poses needs to be mitigated, but without a public execution that would undermine the very foundation of monarchy—the divine right of kings. So, Dr. Dee to the rescue, in a round-about way. Some of the period details lend The Queen’s Lies a sense of time and place, but this tale is mostly fantasy entertainment and re-imagined history.
