AUGUST 2012 - AudioFile
Parris once again casts real-life sixteenth-century free thinker Giordano Bruno in the fictional role of detective and spy in a murder plot set at Canterbury Cathedral. Bruno soon discovers that the murder that has brought him to Canterbury is just the tip of an iceberg of political intrigue that includes a plot to undermine Queen Elizabeth’s claim to the throne. John Lee captures this slice of history with his colorful characterizations. He’s especially good at bringing out the malevolence in the villainous characters, of which there are more than a few. Lee also narrates the other books in the Bruno series, so fans will enjoy the consistency in the voices of the returning characters. F.T. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
Set in 1584 England, this terrific third novel featuring Italian philosopher and intelligence agent Giordano Bruno (after 2011’s Prophecy) reinforces Parris’s position at the top of the Elizabethan historical pack. Rumors that a recently docked ship in the Thames carries the plague have thrown London into a panic, but Bruno has a murder case to deal with. Sophia Underhill, a former love interest of Bruno’s, has fled Canterbury, where her brutish husband, Sir Edward Kingsley, was bludgeoned to death in a manner curiously reminiscent of Thomas Becket’s killing. Since Sophia stood to gain financially from her husband’s demise and bloodstained women’s gloves were found near Kingsley’s body, she fears she’ll be burned for the crime. When Bruno gives in to her entreaties to clear her name, Bruno’s English spymaster, the real-life Sir Francis Walsingham, reluctantly allows his valued operative to journey to Canterbury. Parris creates some genuine chills in scenes set in spooky crypts, and masterfully mixes political intrigue, action, and sleuthing. Agent: Jennifer Joel, ICM. (Apr.)
Kirkus Reviews
Giordano Bruno, the excommunicated monk attached to both the French embassy and the spy network of Sir Francis Walsingham, is lured to Canterbury by still another troubled attachment. In 1584, Bruno thinks he's put Sophia Underhill, whom he loved in vain in Heresy (2010, etc.), behind him. And so he has, but only in the sense that she's dogging his steps in London disguised as a boy. When he recognizes her, she appeals once more for his help. Sir Edward Kingsley, the much older magistrate to whom her aunt married her off after an illegitimate child exiled her from the life she'd known, has been brained with a crucifix in Canterbury Cathedral under conditions that echo the martyrdom of Thomas Becket and make Sophia the obvious suspect. Only Bruno, she insists, can vindicate her by unmasking her hated husband's killer. Under protest, Bruno persuades Walsingham to dispatch him to Canterbury, ostensibly to report back on the doings of Dr. Harry Robinson, the spymaster's man inside the Cathedral Chapter, but secretly accompanied by Sophia, still disguised as Kit. He soon identifies several other promising suspects: Sir Edward's wastrel son Nicholas; physician/alchemist Dr. Ezekiel Sykes; and cathedral gatekeeper Tom Garth, whose sister Sarah died in the Kingsley home nine years ago under mysterious circumstances. In the meantime, however, Bruno stumbles into much deeper waters, from the disappearances of a number of young boys to a plot to revive the Becket cult, dormant ever since the disappearance of the saint's bones, to a conspiracy involving the alchemical theories of Paracelsus and Hermes Trismegistus. Instead of flying below the radar, as Walsingham bade him, Bruno finds himself swiftly making influential enemies as well. Densely textured but slow-moving, with a mystery whose tangled mess of multiple plots and plotters is only partly resolved by Bruno's trial for murder, attempted murder and larceny.
