Cover Image: Queen's Progress

Queen's Progress

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Member Reviews

I am voluntarily submitting my honest review after receiving an ARC of this ebook via NetGalley.

This historical mystery features Christopher Marlowe first and foremost as a spy and investigator in Cecil's vast network, with his talent as a playwright and entertainer serving as a convenient and productive cover role. While this novel is the ninth in the author's Christopher Marlowe series and I might have enjoyed it more had I read the previous eight novels, I had no trouble following the plot without having read them. Queen's Progress has a lively and engaging mystery, however, the plot's progression relies upon a series of extremely unlikely events. SPOILER ALERT!!!

SPOILER ALERT!!!

For example, there is no way a royal visit would ever have been granted to a family that wasn't already highly in favor and hadn't been extremely thoroughly vetted, so the Middlehams would have been arrested long before any of the events in the book could have unfolded. In addition, the Queen was so well known that there is simply no way a man could have played her part for courtiers who knew her and interacted with her on a regular basis. Also, her not being escorted by her regular ladies-in-waiting, as well as her regular bodyguards and a full contingent of soldiers for protection would have tipped off the entire gathering that something was amiss. These and other details make the ending falter in what is an otherwise entertaining historical mystery.

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Kit Marlowe, playwright and sometimes spy, is back on another adventure. This time he is enlisted by Sir Robert Cecil to arrange for all the entertainment and logistics for Queen Elizabeth's Royal Progress as she visits the homes of some of her subjects. But, as Kit and his crew travel to each manor, tragedies strike which prompt Kit to cancel the slated stops at those venues. Are these tragedies isolated incidents or are they all somehow connected? It's up to Kit and his crew to figure things out.

I enjoyed this book. The characters are well developed and the plot is plausible. I look forward to the next installment in this series.

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