By Paul Carrier
Giordano Bruno, a former priest who has been excommunicated by the Catholic Church, is a philosopher with heretical views. But it is his more worldly skills as a spy and sleuth that hold center stage in the crime novels of S.J. Parris.
Conspiracy, the fifth entry in the series, is no exception. It finds the crime-solving renegade investigating multiple murders in 16th-century Paris during a period of violent upheaval, as France's weak-willed king, Henri III, tries to avert a civil war between Catholics and Protestants.
Bruno is in a perilous, even life-threatening, position once three powerful rivals effectively force him to do their bidding: the king himself, who has had previous dealings with Bruno; Henri's archenemy, a duke who leads France's militant Catholic faction; and the Protestant spymaster for England’s Queen Elizabeth, who questions the loyalties of the English ambassador to France.
Conspiracy is an atmospheric thriller with credible characters, a galloping plot, an intriguing historical setting, and twists and turns galore.
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