Starred review from October 21, 2019
Parris’s excellent fourth Elizabethan whodunit featuring philosopher spy Giordano Bruno (after 2012’s Sacrilege) finds Sir Francis Drake preparing to lead a large fleet against Spain. While the official story is that Drake intends to sail along the Spanish coast to rescue English ships being held in that country’s ports, he’s actually planning an all-out assault on Spain’s New World holdings. But Drake’s departure from Plymouth is delayed after crew member Robert Dunne, an officer who circumnavigated the globe with Drake seven years earlier, is found hanged in his locked room aboard Drake’s flagship, an apparent suicide. Seeing evidence that Dunne was murdered, Drake is wary of embarking with a killer on board. By chance, Bruno’s friend, Sir Philip Sidney, was scheming to join the Drake fleet, and after learning of the problem, volunteers Bruno, who has successfully solved murders before, to investigate. Bruno soon gets on the track of a monstrous plot against the kingdom. This is historical mystery fiction at its finest. Agent: Deborah Schneider, ICM.