I’ve been a big fan of S J Parris’s Giordano Bruno series of historical thrillers, which follow a heretic priest on the run from Rome, recruited by Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster Francis Walsingham. In this new series S J Parris has shifted the narrative along a decade or so and reintroduced a peripheral figure from the Bruno books as her main character, sleuth and spy. This would be Sophia de Wolfe, now thirty-five and a woman of means, living quietly in London. Queen Elizabeth is in her final years, but the threats to her sovereignty have not gone away, particularly since there is the big question of who will succeed the throne when the queen dies.
Traitor’s Legacy begins with the burial of a body – just a young girl – at a site where a band of players, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, has just removed its theatre, ready to rebuild on the other side of the Thames. It’s winter, and the dismantling of the theatre happens quietly, undercover of darkness, with a young boy called Badger paid to keep a look out. What Badger also sees, is the two men who hide the girl, as well as the jewelled clasp one of them leaves behind. There are documents with the body, too, written in code.
We flip to Sophia’s home where she is being tutored in the skill of swordsmanship. She wears her specially made duelling breeches, not an outfit any right-minded woman of the age would be seen in, but the canny reader knows they’re going to come in handy later on, along with her skills with the sword. Her session is interrupted by a visit from Thomas Phelippes, an envoy from Robert Cecil, Walsingham’s replacement. He has news of the body, an Agnes Lovell, and Cecil wants to see Sophia immediately. The coded documents are in Sophia’s cypher, from her days as one of Walsingham’s spies.
Thinking her days of espionage long over, Sophia is now tasked with discovering who might have written a warning in her code and left it with the girl’s body. Sophia will have to dig into who might have killed the girl and why, and whether the warning has links to the Queen’s determination to bring the Irish into line. Or something else entirely. Young Agnes was a ward under the guardianship of the powerful North family, and Sir Thomas North and his son had both served in the Irish War. But Agnes’s uncle was a known Catholic sympathiser – so there’s that. And then there’s the theatre company whose site was so convenient to the murderer – so many threads to unravel.
Sophia’s own history will come into play, particularly when the son she gave up for adoption at birth, now a teenage boy and member of the Chamberlain’s Men, becomes accused of the murder. There are threats against Sophia herself, some daring rooftop escapes and more bodies turning up to keep the story humming along. In the background you have Parris’s depth of research which brings Tudor England to life, not just the powerful players at court, such as Cecil and the Duke of Essex, but the ordinary folk – the street kids, like Badger, living off their wits, the servants that know more than they’d like to let on, the women working in brothels. There’s lots of insight into the precarious place of women in all levels of society too, something Sophia understands only too well.
This is such a rich and layered novel, keeping the reader on their toes, with a cast of interesting characters. I loved the scenes in the theatres – the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were Shakespeare’s troupe. But there’s also a rival group, the Admiral’s Men, and their playwright, Anthony Munday – a former spying colleague of Sophia’s who gets involved in the case. There’s some unfinished business for Sophia to sort out with both her son and with Munday – so plenty of interesting threads as the series continues.
I was delighted to listen to this as an audiobook read by Kristin Atherton, who does all the voices so well, it’s hard to believe they’re all the same narrator. And I’m also delighted that the next book in the series, Rebel’s Gambit, is out in May. Traitor’s Legacy is a five-star read from me.
Judith McKinnon 