Crimson Rose

Christopher “Kit” Marlowe has achieved fame as a playwright in Trow’s intricately plotted fifth historical featuring the scholar and former secret intelligence officer (after Scorpions’ Nest). Unfortunately, on the opening night of Kit’s play Tamburlaine at London’s Rose theater, landlady Eleanor Marchant is fatally shot in her seat, apparently by a stage gun wielded by bit player Will Shakespeare. When the authorities find that Will is Eleanor’s boarder and that Eleanor and her seductive sister, Constance, attended the play as his guests, he is jailed. At great personal peril, the swashbuckling, witty Kit attempts to prove Will innocent, along the way encountering illegal moneylending, two more murders, sexual intrigue, and lots of unrepentant rogues. Some playful anachronisms notwithstanding, lovers of the period will enjoy the appearances by historical figures, irreverent glimpses of Elizabethan theater, and richly detailed depictions of a corrupt, colorful city. (Nov.)