Execution/SJ Parris
Publishing is very much a copy-cat business. Thus – when one writer comes up with a successful genre – rest assured it will not be long before another follows.
CJ Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake novels set in the reign of Henry VIII are immensely popular.
SJ Parris’ novels are in the reign of Elizabeth 1.
Both have one word titles and both combine actual, religious and social history with a murder mystery.
Both have a singular detective. Parris’ (her actual name is Stephanie Merritt) detective is a Neapolitan ex-Dominican Friar called Gioardano Bruno who works for the Queen’s spymaster the brilliant but ruthless Francis Walsingham.
A mutiliated body is discovered in a graveyard called Cross Bones in Southwark where prostitutes are dumped.
The background is the Babington plot to oust Elizabeth and put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. The deceased is identified as Clara Poole – her brother Robin is a member of the plot but works for Walsingham.
Bruno is infiltrated into the plotters by Walsingham under an alias. However, the detection is the weakest element. Bruno does far too much theorising.
A great detective novel writer like Agatha Christie leaves the big reveal to the end.
The best element is the depiction of Elizabethan London.
Southwark is a quarter full of brothels (“stews”) bawdy taverns and theatre.
Across the Thames – in Cheapside, Leadenhall and Bishopsgate – beats the heart of London with nearby Whitehall the centre of government.
The fierce religious divide between Catholic and Protestants is also well evoked.
The Catholics have the inquisition. Walsingham is obsessed with protecting the Protestant Queen from the threat of the Papacy, France, Spain and Scotland.
There are gruesome torture scenes with implements used by the Inquistion such as the Heretic’s Fork applied to the throat and a sort of vertical rack called Stoppardo where the victim is hoisted by a pulley to the ceiling and dropped.
I both admire and criticise such novels.
I admire the research and attention to historical, social and religious detail. I criticise the use of actual characters obviating any need to create any.
Walsingham, his decoder Phelippes and the leading members of the plot – Anthony Babington, Father Ballard, John Savage and Gilbert Clifford – all existed.
The inventions such as Poole, and Sophia Underhill are less well drawn.
I may well read another Parris but I will await the next CJ Sansom with greater enthusiasm.
