The mystery is twisty, unpredictable, and ultimately satisfying.
As the plague grips London, Christopher Marlowe tries to solve the murder of a theatrical rival.
In 1592, “The Pestilence” is beginning to creep into the city of London. Playwright and sometime sleuth Kit Marlowe (Queen’s Progress, 2018, etc.) is preparing a new production, The Massacre at Paris, when he gets an eerie letter from playwright Robert Greene, who’s recently died under mysterious circumstances. The intensely curious Marlowe can’t help visiting Greene’s boardinghouse and even digging up his grave. His conclusion: “Murder, most foul.” Marlowe enlists the aid of the Queen’s Magus, John Dee, in confirming that Greene was poisoned. Even with the approaching opening of his play, Marlowe’s driven by his compulsion to learn the truth about the death of Greene, who’d been increasingly eccentric and reclusive in recent years. Marlowe revisits Cambridge, where he and Greene were fellow students, for some insight. Dr. Gabriel Harvey claims to have been in attendance shortly after Greene died, reportedly from an overindulgence of wine and herring. But when Marlowe explains that Greene was poisoned, Harvey’s reaction is odd. The deeper significance of this reaction is impressed on Marlowe when, shortly after their meeting, he’s attacked and passes out. From that point on, there’s no turning back from his search for the truth, which is aided considerably by his chance meeting with Richard, an industrious orphan lad. Meanwhile, as plague creeps into the city, the theaters are closed, threatening Marlowe’s livelihood. Trow’s 10th Elizabethan mystery delights with its knowledge of 16th-century theater and its large cast of real-life characters like William Cecil, Richard Burbage, and the murder victim himself.
The mystery is twisty, unpredictable, and ultimately satisfying.Pub Date: July 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78029-116-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
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