Face Down Upon an Herbal

Treason, conspiracy and political scheming in Elizabethan England form a complex and sinister background for Lady Susanna Appleton's latest foray into sleuthing. The self-assured and feisty herbalist and author of A Cautionary Herbal, who was last seen in Face Down in the Marrow-bone Pie (1997), is bid by the queen to visit Madderly Castle, ostensibly to help Lady Madderly complete her own book on herbs. But a series of murders at the castle puts that project on hold. Lord Glenelg, an arrogant and irritating houseguest, is stabbed with his own knife. Lady Madderly is bludgeoned with a silver candlestick, and her sister-in-law is strangled. Susanna summons her husband, Sir Robert, back from Scotland, where he was happily combining a serious errand for the queen with his own wenching and quaffing. Their joint detection efforts, though acrimonious, are productive. Is treason in the works? The story is wonderfully enhanced by herbal lore (decoctions, potions and balms) and a heated and forbidden romance: Susanna's impressionable young sister-in-law is smitten with someone entirely unsuitable. There is always someone lurking behind an arras or scuttling along a secret passage, and codes and ciphers play a key role. At times, the conspiracies seem unreasonably complex, but Lady Appleton's keen logic and insight prove bracing. (Apr.)