The Sinner’s Mark

by S. W. Perry Book 6 in the The Jackdaw Mysteries series.

First published 2023

Amazon

4.6(4,157)

England, 1600. Elizabeth I is ageing, arguments over religion and succession are sharpening, and Nicholas Shelby believes he has finally loosened Robert Cecil’s hold over him. That hope ends when his elderly father is arrested for possessing seditious material. Securing help from Cecil places Nicholas back inside the intelligence network just as the crown is confronting a new conspiracy, while Bianca follows a separate trail involving a missing youth from the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s London.

The final Jackdaw mystery also returns to the international diplomacy opened in The Saracen’s Mark. Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, ambassador of the Moroccan sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, arrives at Elizabeth’s court in 1600, and Nicholas is ordered to watch the embassy while old connections with Morocco resurface. Perry brings sedition, religious extremism, theatre and Anglo-Moroccan diplomacy together in a story preoccupied with what will follow Elizabeth’s death, giving Nicholas and Bianca a final test in a kingdom where political change is already visible before the crown itself changes hands.