July 24, 2017
In Jecks’s Rebellion’s Message (2016), gambler Jack Blackjack, who lives among “the purse-snatchers and pilferers” of London, got caught up in the 1554 rebellion that sought to overthrow Queen Mary. In this engrossing sequel set in the same year, the kingdom of England is calm only on the surface. Since he’s eager to escape a paramour’s jealous husband in London, Jack agrees to undertake a distasteful job for his patron, Sir Thomas Percy—to travel beyond Oxford to the palace of Woodstock, where Princess Elizabeth is confined, and murder one of Elizabeth’s guardians, Lady Margery, who poses a threat to the princess’s security and safety. When Jack arrives in Woodstock, “a place steeped in misery and deceit,” he’s astonished to discover that Lady Margery has already been murdered. Jack, himself a suspect, faces the daunting task of identifying the real killer. Plot twists abound, but the novel’s greatest strength is its jaunty tone, plunging the reader into raucous Elizabethan England, when the lady herself was still but “a trim little thing.”
July 15, 2017
A reluctant crime solver offers a new perspective on the troubled early life and times of Elizabeth I.Jack Blackjack's life has improved immeasurably since his unwitting involvement in the failed plot to put Lady Jane Grey on the English throne in place of Mary (Rebellion's Message, 2016, etc.). Now that Jack's being paid by John Blount and his associates, who want to see Elizabeth crowned, he's moved from a hovel to a nice house. Because he's in trouble with Thomas Falkes, a dangerous thug who's taken offense over Jack's affair with his wife, he's eager to leave London. Although Blount has hired him to commit various crimes, including assassination, Jack is a coward who hates the sight of blood and longs for a quiet life of wine, women, good food, and fancy clothes. So he panics when he's ordered to the Palace of Woodstock, where young Lady Elizabeth is being held safely away from any rebellious plots, to kill Lady Margery Throcklehampton, a lady-in-waiting who's been installed to spy on the princess. No sooner do Jack and Blount arrive than Jack stumbles over the corpse of Lady Margery, throat freshly cut and necklace missing. If he hadn't been in the company of three maids when they found the body, he would have been arrested on the spot. Despite his alibi, Blount is convinced he did the deed. He's about to be attacked when he's saved by the daughter of Elizabeth's keeper, Sir Henry Bedingfield. So many people think he's guilty that he suffers several beatings, the arrest of his master, and threats from a variety of sources. Jecks infuses plenty of humor into his tale of misadventure, mixed motives, and unlikely friendships. Although Jack is lazy and indifferent to any particular cause, he's forced to discover the killer to save his neck. An unlikely and amusing sleuth who manages to solve a tricky mystery against all odds.
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