Traitor’s Storm

In Trow’s so-so sixth Tudor mystery featuring playwright Christopher “Kit” Marlowe (after 2013’s Crimson Rose), Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s legendary spymaster, dispatches Kit to the Isle of Wight in search of missing spy Harry Hasler, whose last communiqué made a vague reference to danger. Posing as a writer looking for inspiration, Kit arrives on Wight determined to learn whether there’s any link between Hasler’s disappearance and the ongoing threat to England from Spain. Kit is present at the discovery of a strangled corpse, which, to his relief, is not Hasler but rather a farmer, Walter Hunnybun. Hunnybun isn’t the last murder victim the agent encounters while seeking his quarry, but the whodunit isn’t Trow’s best. The tongue-in-cheek tone, especially evident toward the end, undercuts any attempt at gritty realism, making this less engaging than similarly themed historical mysteries. [em](Aug.) [/em]