A Traitor's Tears

January 6, 2014
Buckley’s engaging 12th Tudor whodunit featuring Ursula Blanchard (after 2013’s A Rescue for a Queen) smoothly blends history and fiction to depict the precariousness of life in 1573 England. Ursula, Queen Elizabeth’s half-sister, wants nothing more than a quiet life in the country raising her infant son, Harry. She becomes involved in intrigue, however, when Jane Cobbold, her gossipy neighbor, is murdered, and Ursula’s servant and trusted adviser, Roger Brockley, is arrested for the crime. With Sir William Cecil, the queen’s treasurer, and Francis Walsingham, her feared spymaster, meddling in the case, Ursula knows that affairs of state and devious plots are not far behind. Catholic opponents of the Protestant Elizabeth continue to plot to install Mary, Queen of Scots, in her place. Plus, up-and-coming politician Roland Wyse wants to marry Ursula. While the plot drags in the middle, where the arduous nature of travel in the 16th century is described in detail, the rousing conclusion should leave historical fans satisfied.

December 5, 2011
At the start of Buckley’s solid ninth Elizabethan historical (after 2004’s The Siren Queen), Mark Easton, a messenger, brings news to Elizabeth I about a plot to free Mary, queen of Scots, from captivity in England. Easton also has a personal request for Ursula Stannard (formerly Blanchard), lady-in-waiting to her half-sister, Elizabeth, and retired spy. More than 20 years earlier, Easton’s father, Gervase, was suspected of tampering with the food of a womanizer with designs on Easton’s mother. Gervase committed suicide after coming under suspicion, but left a letter swearing his innocence of the crime that Easton just happened upon. Ursula agrees to help Easton clear his father’s name, but she has an uphill battle, as few of the original witnesses are still alive. Readers not expecting Buckley to equal the quality of a Rory Clements or C.J. Sansom will be satisfied.