"Fabulous historical mystery"

On a whim, Queen Elizabeth I decides to leave her London residence and stay at Nonsuch Palace for a while. Beside the courtiers and the rest of the retinue who make up Elizabeth's inner circle, she takes along artists, who are painting a state picture of her and she will pick the one that is the best and send it all over Europe. Gil Sharpe, who was sent to Italy to learn with the masters goes to Nonsuch and decides to enter the competition to paint his Queen's portrait.

Since Nonsuch is small, many of the people who traveled with Elizabeth are staying in the courtyard in tents. One of the artist's tents catches fire, killing him and his assistant. It is determined that the fire was deliberately set using a mirror and the sun to start the flames. A second artist's tent is also burned in the same manner. Elizabeth convinces her Privy Plot council to help her smoke out the killer but the perpetrator is very cunning. Elizabeth finds her own life is put in danger by a person without mercy.

This is the seventh Elizabeth I mystery by fabulous historical mystery writer Karen Harper and it is a thrilling reading experience because there are so many suspects with too few motives. Readers see the intelligence of the queen as she maneuvers Mary, Queen of Scots into a marriage of her choosing and plans to use her as a public relations tool to prove she is a queen in total command of the kingdom she rules. Fans of the Ursula Blanches series by Fiona Buckley will definitely love this glimpse into a bygone era.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted January 15, 2005

Summary

Elizabethan England comes alive as its young queen struggles to stop a serial killer who uses fire as a weapon. From commoner to courtier, from the delights of rural England to the streets of teeming London, the queen and her coterie turn detectors in Karen Harper's acclaimed mystery series. Smitten with spring fever, Elizabeth Tudor escapes London for fantastical Nonsuch Palace in the sweet Surrey countryside. There she hopes to relax and pose for the official royal portrait for which she is holding a competition. Elizabeth is both delighted and dismayed when her young court artist, Gil Sharpe, returns early from schooling in Italy, where he has also been spying for the crown. But one of her artists is burned to death, and portraits of the queen are going up in flames. When she hears that her rival, the dangerous Mary, Queen of Scots, has been peering in mirrors and announcing, "I see the next queen of England!" Elizabeth summons her Privy Plot Council. Has the arsonist been sent by foreign foes or is it someone in her own court? Or is the "running boy" apparition really a ghost out to avenge a terrible past tragedy caused by the Tudors? Time is running out, because the enemy who stalks the queen means to destroy not only her portraits and artists, but her very life.