BLACK DEATH

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.