Crimson Rose

By Sara Hughes

March, 1587. Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine, with the incomparable Ned Alleyn in the title role, has opened at the Rose Theatre, and a new era on the London stage is born.

Yet the play is almost shut down on its opening night. For a member of the audience, Eleanor Merchant, lies dead, hit by a musket ball fired from the stage. The man with his finger on the trigger? A bit-part player named Will Shakespeare.

Convinced of Shakespeare’s innocence, Marlowe determines to find out what really happened. When a second body is found floating in the River Thames, it becomes clear that Eleanor Merchant’s death was no accident, and that something deeper and darker is afoot. And why is the Queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, taking a close personal interest in the case?

Fans of Edward Marston’s amusing Elizabethan theater mysteries, featuring Nicholas Bracewell, will enjoy Kit Marlowe’s part in the drama at the Crimson Rose

• Language: English
• Publisher: Severn House Digital
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780104539

Sara Hughes

M.J. Trow was educated as a military historian at King’s College, London and is probably best known today for his true crime and crime fiction works. He has always been fascinated by Richard III and, following on from Richard III in the North, also by Pen and Sword, has hopefully finally scotched the rumour that Richard III killed the princes in the Tower. He divides his time between homes in the Isle of Wight and the Land of the Prince Bishops.

Reviews for Crimson Rose

[eyes92c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

...a first rate twisty Elizabethan intrigue!Christopher Marlowe, Elizabethan play write and supposed spy for Francis Walsingham has a new play, Tamburlaine, being performed.Will Shakespeare has a part. He is to fire a gun during the performance. He discharges his gun and in the aftermath it is discovered that he has killed someone in the audience--his landlady. That's just the beginning. It's up to Kit to solve the riddle, and clear Shakespeare's name. Bodies begin to litter the novel's stage.At the same time a corpse is fished from the Thames.Dodgy doings and swindling are at hand. Spies are thicker on the ground than a London fog.The action includes a dangerous chase through the narrow streets alleyways, and a murderer most unexpected.Trow has made use of interesting historical fact and speculation such as the relationship between Kit and and William Shakespeare, the thought that Marlowe might have been a crown spy, and other factors to great advantage.Two of the nefarious toughs we first meet attempting a swindle on Marlowe, we continue to meet throughout the story. They are Nicholas Skeres and Ingram Fritzer. (Historically rumoured to have stabbed Kit to death.)The problem Kit is having with his Masters Degree being conferred by his Cambridge college, Corpus Christi, a matter that forms part of the background in this novel, is sorted out by the Chief Secretary, one of Walsingham's associates. (That this historically actually was a problem for Marlowe, solved by outside pressure, suggests some think, that Marlowe did indeed work for the crown.)Kit's investigations leads him into a nest of Protestants. But as one says to him there are many groups, 'What is it they call us? Puritans? Well it takes all sorts, Brother, all sorts. We are actually fifty shades of grey when all is said and done.' Wryly amusing.A thoroughly good yarn!A NetGalley ARC