By Paul Carrier
Queen Elizabeth of England, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, is well into her reign when Oliver Clements’ The Queen’s Men opens in late 1577. But just as her life was endangered in Clements’ previous novel, The Eyes of the Queen, Elizabeth remains a vulnerable target in this sequel.
As the queen and her entourage travel through Waltham Forest, gunmen ambush the royal party’s carriages and mistakenly kill one of Elizabeth’s attendants in a failed assassination plot.
A frantic search for the killers ensues, against a backdrop of troublesome developments elsewhere that may threaten Elizabeth and her Protestant realm.
With Catholic Spain sweeping through the Low Countries, fears of an invasion grow. To prepare for it, Elizabeth’s senior advisors try to replicate Greek fire, an ancient incendiary weapon so dangerous it burned on water.
This is a work of fiction, of course, but one key aspect of the fast-paced plot is sufficiently far-fetched to require a complete suspension of disbelief. All in all, though, it's a satisfying read for fans of historical fiction.
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