Black Death

Trow makes the most of his setting—1592 London beset by the bubonic plague—in his atmospheric 10th whodunit featuring Christopher Marlowe (after 2018’s Queen’s Progress). Marlowe, a playwright and intelligence operative, is surprised to receive a letter from Robert Greene, a university scholar, whom he knew—and disliked—while they were students at Cambridge. Greene is dead by the time Marlowe reads the letter, in which Greene says he believes someone is trying to kill him. Despite their past antipathy, Marlowe feels obligated to pursue the matter and undertakes an unofficial exhumation. His resolve to find Greene’s killer is strengthened when Marlowe’s friend, magician John Dee, reports that the remains Marlowe brought him to test reveal evidence of poison. Meanwhile, fear of the spread of the Black Death forces the government into extreme measures, including closing down all the playhouses, but when Marlowe seeks to overturn the decree, his employer, Elizabeth I’s spymaster, Robert Cecil, is, for some reason, more interested in the mystery of Greene’s death. This is a strong entry in a series that’s gotten better with each book. (July)