The Reckoning

Trow goes out on a high note with his sterling 11th and final mystery starring English playwright Kit Marlowe (after 2019’s Black Death). In 1593, Elizabeth’s reign is under threat. Against that backdrop, Marlowe looks to stage a play based on the life of a murdered king, Edward II. Multiple actual murders disrupt the production, starting with that of John Foxe, an actor found with a dagger poking through his chest in an upstairs room of a London tavern where he’d been with a willing young woman. Marlowe tracks down the young woman, Moll, who confesses that a stranger paid her to push Foxe onto a particular spot on the bed. Evidently, someone who knew that Foxe enjoyed being pushed back onto his bed as a prelude to sex planted a dagger in the mattress in such a fashion to ensure his death. Soon afterward, Moll’s throat is slit. Meanwhile, powerful men, alarmed by perceived subversive themes in the play, conspire against Marlowe, leading to the dramatic conclusion. Trow reinforces his place at the top of the Elizabethan mystery subgenre with this outing. (July)