Sacred Treason

Forrester (the pen name of historian Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveler%E2%80%99s Guide to Medieval England) brings a new trilogy to the Elizabethan shelves with this enjoyable first book. In 1563, Catholics are hunted by Queen Elizabeth%E2%80%99s men. William Harley, Clarenceux King of Armes is a Catholic herald in her majesty%E2%80%99s court and worries that his secret will be discovered. But one night an old friend, Henry Machyn, recklessly breaks curfew to ask Clarenceux to safeguard his volume of %E2%80%9Cseditious and heretical writings,%E2%80%9D telling his friend that the %E2%80%9Cfate of two queens depends on%E2%80%9D the project, 13 years in the making. If anything should happen, Machyn tells Clarenceux, he is to give the chronicle to the Knights of the Round Table. Clarenceux, ignorant of the Knights%E2%80%99 existence, now has in his possession a book that will put him in great peril unless he unravels the mystery at its heart. Forrester (Roots of Betrayal) vividly renders emotional scenes, and the book%E2%80%99s villains are sufficiently despicable to keep readers rooting for Clarenceux in this strong beginning to the trilogy. (Oct.)