An Honourable Murderer

by Philip Gooden Book 6 in the Nick Revill series.

First published 2005

Amazon

4.0(62)

London, summer 1604. Spanish and Habsburg diplomats arrive to negotiate peace with James VI and I after nearly two decades of war. The acting company is drawn into the ceremonies, while opponents of reconciliation look towards Walter Raleigh and other displaced Elizabethan courtiers for resistance.

Nick Revill accepts a part in a masque organised by Ben Jonson at Somerset House, where the foreign delegation is lodged. When a courtier falls to his death from a stage machine, an apparent rehearsal accident exposes a conspiracy surrounding the treaty. Nick must investigate among performers and officials before another theatrical effect is used as a political weapon.