The reliable author of English historical crime, Michael Jecks, returns with a story that reminds me of the Blackadder TV series. Tudor London in 1555 is the setting, studded with larger than life characters, cut-purses and alehouses. THE DEAD DON’T WAIT follows Jack Blackjack, an unwed man who hobnobs with the influential and raises a hue and cry over killings. The best part of this author is that he demonstrates the origin of these sayings. The hob was where you put a pot to heat by the fire, the nob was where you put a pot to stay cool, so to hobnob you took your choice of drink and sat to talk.
Coroner Richard of Bath is in London, investigating the killing of a priest. Jack has been accused of the deed, though he was nowhere near the hamlet of St. Botulfs Without. He is ordered to accompany the coroner to aid his investigations. We learn that due to the turbulent politics of the day, priests were allowed to marry at one point and then with a change of monarch, forbidden to marry. A priest called Peter thus had to choose between his wife and five children, or his paying position in the Church. He chose the church and now he is dead. His widow is distraught and penniless.
An even less savoury story thread is provided by two horrible gamblers and gangsters. The reader takes against them at once for their evil actions, and they keep pursuing Jack for money they claim he owes in a fraudulent debt. At this time London didn’t have a police force like today, and people who were often on the shady side of the law – like Jack – had to make their own protection from crime.
Not everyone will love the mystery, simply because of the constant references to the dirt, stench, gore, violence, threats and lust that seemed to compose everyone’s lives, unless they were royalty. If you’d rather imagine Tudor London with pomades in the pockets of elaborate dresses and sails being lowered as merchant ships came to port, by all means find the books that suit you. Michael Jecks has done his research admirably and tells it like it was, for the majority of English people at that period. Given the dirt and stench, by the way, I find the lust hard to believe. But there wasn’t much other entertainment. THE DEAD DON’T WAIT affords us a look at the crime-solving work of a coroner, and the efforts made by the accused Jack to clear his name. Best read with a flagon of ale or cider!
April, 1555. A priest has been stabbed to death in the village of St Botolph, to the east of the City of London, his body left to rot by the roadside – and Jack Blackjack stands accused of his murder.
As well as clearing his name, Jack has his own reasons for wanting to find out who really killed the priest – but this is an investigation where nothing is as it seems. Was it a random attack by a desperate outlaw, or do the answers lie in the murdered priest’s past? As he questions those who knew the dead man, Jack is faced with a number of conflicting accounts – and it’s clear that not everyone can be telling him the whole truth.
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