A Conspiracy of Violence

The book is better than the TV series. The characters are edgier, more complex and the writing is full of wit that is totally missing from the TV scripts, so even if you saw all those episodes, read this author. You will not be sorry.

The Thomas Chaloner series is a marvelous departure from Susanna Gregory's other series although I love it, too. This series gives the reader the chance to experience the era through the eyes of one character in depth. The action is staggeringly rapid and unexpected, and the historic detail allows the reader to experience the era with all of his senses. Outrageoussally

Thomas Chaloner has been living a lie for more than a decade, first in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, working as a spy for England's Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. Now, after Cromwell's death, Chaloner is back in London but even as he scrambles to find new work he can't afford to let his true identity be known; his uncle was among those "regicides" who signed the order to behead Charles I, and the newly-restored Charles II has vowed to punish those most fervent Parliamentarians. Chaloner, however, just wants to get a life. Not any life, of course; he's a spy by training, and would prefer a reasonably-paid job pursuing his own profession to the ill-paid part-time work he has tending to the accounts of a Puritan chapel near his ice-cold rented room, whose rent he can't afford. Trying to find a patron, he finds himself caught between a retired Parliamentarian statesman whose acumen he admires and the new Lord Chanceller, the Earl of Clarendon, of whom he is simultaneously wary and scornful. Between them, the two men soon have Chaloner on the hop, chasing everything from treasure allegedly buried inside the Tower of London to the identity of someone who assassinated one of Chaloner's predecessors, even as he dodges murderous villains through some of London's least salubrious alleyways. This first instalment of Chaloner's adventures covers the landscape of Restoration London, from the growing political tensions between the English and the Dutch (Metje, Chaloner's mistress, has followed him from the Netherlands to London) to the daily habits of Londoners (the wearing of uncomfortable wigs and the purchasing of milk direct from cows perambulating through the streets). Every character -- including an obnoxious turkey who runs amok in Chaloner's neighbor's household -- is deftly drawn and full of life. Meanwhile, the mystery itself is full of enough twists and turns to hold your interest if you have no compelling interest in 17th century politics -- although Susanna Gregory doesn't seem to put a foot wrong in her knowledge of these as well as the city of London itself. And it's very well written, to boot -- a triple threat. I'm glad to see that there are at least two more in this series to keep me happy; then it's on to Susanna Gregory's medieval series for me!