Severn House Publishers
Featuring: Master Nicholas Baldwin; Mistress Rosamond Jaffrey; Rob Jaffrey
279 pages ISBN: 1780106084 EAN: 9781780106083 Kindle: B00SHUMNCS e-Book Add to Wish List
This hugely enjoyable book first in the Mistress
Jaffrey
Mystery series is set in historic London during Queen
Elizabeth's reign, where we find actors treading the
boards
- boards are raised on top of hogshead barrels at an inn
to
create a stage. Of course, no gentlewoman would frequent a
playhouse so in order to watch this comical entertainment,
Mistress Rosamond Jaffrey needs to go disguised and
accompanied by servants.
MURDER IN THE QUEEN'S WARDROBE then shows the intrepid
lady
being recruited by a merchant and Royal intelligencer,
Master Nicholas Baldwin, to act the part of lady in
waiting
to a noblewoman's daughter. A Russian nobleman is on his
way to woo Lady Mary Hastings on behalf of his master the
Czar of Russia. The Queen would have to give permission
for Lady Mary to marry, but she does not wish to offend
the
Czar. Rosamond knows a little of this work, for her father
was an intelligencer in his day, and she speaks several
languages including basic Russian. The Czar is known as
Ivan the Terrible for good reason, and he could have every
Englishman in his reign arrested, including Rosamund's
husband. This is the only reason she agrees to turn spy
at
Court.
The intrigue deepens as we follow Rosamund's merchant
husband Rob to look inside the city of Moscow on the
frozen
river, where the Czar holds sway in the mighty fortress
called the Kremlin. Back in London, my favourite scene is
when Rosamund is rowed upriver alongside the spreading
city
and villages which of course are mere districts of London
today. Rosamund has to visit the Great Wardrobe where the
Queen's robes are made, and it's here that her troubles
really begin.
The characters, locations and garments are vividly
recreated along with the dragging boredom of a
gentlewoman's normal life. The Christmas and New Year
period in England and Moscow are lovingly detailed.
Spiced
as liberally with tension, intrigue and murder as with the
scents of cloves, pomanders and Yule logs, MURDER IN THE
QUEEN'S WARDROBE is a hearty, involving tale. With
motives
for murder both personal and political, we are royally
entertained. Kathy Lynn Emerson, with several historical
mysteries under her belt, has outdone herself this time
and
given us a doughty heroine to applaud.
A female spymaster will face mortal danger to protect her
husband and her queen. . .
London, 1582: Mistress Rosamond Jaffrey, a talented and
well-educated woman of independent means, is recruited by
Queen Elizabeth I’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, to
be
lady-in-waiting to Lady Mary, a cousin of the queen. With
her talent in languages and knowledge of ciphers and
codes,
she will be integral to the spymaster as an intelligence
gatherer, being able to get close to Lady Mary just at the
time when she is being courted by Russia’s Ivan the
Terrible.
However, there are some nobles at court who will do
anything
they can to thwart such an alliance; and Rosamond soon
realizes the extent of the danger, when a prominent
official
is murdered and then an attempt is made on both her and
Lady
Mary’s lives.
In her quest to protect her ward – and her estranged
husband
– Rosamond must put herself in mortal peril.
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