June 27, 2016
The year may be 1554, but a distinctly Dickensian atmosphere rules in this energetic series launch from Jecks (Templar’s Acre). London’s vast underworld teems with pickpockets, gamblers, prostitutes, and pimps. Real-life Tudor figures, such as Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, make occasional appearances. Jack Blackjack, Jecks’s winning if disreputable lead, is drawn to London because he doesn’t want to make leather jacks and buckets in Whitstable like his father or go into the army and end up “lying with my belly slashed open on a field of gore.” Jack takes to a life of crime, but he’s in over his head after a pickpocket scheme gone bad makes him the chief suspect in a tavern murder, and it’s revealed that the dead man was carrying a message critical to the conspirators in the Wyatt Rebellion, which opposed Queen Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain. A master of caustic tone and well-observed detail, Jecks keeps the suspense at a steady boil as his well-rounded characters fight for a corner in tumultuous London with humor and even humanity.
June 1, 2016
A pickpocket's latest haul comes with a dangerous curse.Jack Blackjack lives in a hovel with fellow thieves Wat, Gil, and Ham; their fence, Bill Tanner; and his mistress, the delectable Moll. Jack steals a purse in a tavern and escapes through the door to the yard only to wake up next to a dead man. Back with his friends, he opens the purse, which holds a great deal of money and, as Jack secretly discovers, a hidden pocket containing a paper with a coded message. Since most people think Jack murdered the unidentified man for his purse, he must be careful to avoid the law while he tries to translate the cypher and find the real killer. Queen Mary's plan to marry a Spaniard does not sit well with the populace, and London is about to be attacked by a rebel army led by Wyatt, who wants to return Lady Jane Grey to the throne. A codebreaker helps Jack decipher the note, an order directed to Wyatt from some powerful personage. Meantime, Gil is beaten to death, probably because he was wearing the purse Jack stole, which has become the target of several mysterious groups. Each time the hapless Jack thinks he's made a discovery leading to the murderer, he realizes he's wrong and starts off on a new path. Despite his horror of killing, he ends up having to fight the rebels. Now he's threatened with a painful death by the Lord High Chancellor and constantly harried by both friends and enemies of the queen. Jecks inaugurates his new series by moving from medieval times (The Deadliest Sin, 2014, etc.) to the turbulent Tudor period. His unlikely detective is neither brave nor wise nor very bright, but he's often quite funny as he doggedly tracks down an unexpected killer.
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October 15, 2018
In Jecks’s entertaining third mystery featuring accomplished thief and reluctant assassin Jack Blackjack (after 2017’s A Murder Too Soon), the looming birth of a child to Queen Mary and her Spanish husband, Prince Philip, seems to promise stability for England. But conspiracies abound in 1555, and Jack once again finds himself at the mercy of forces more powerful than himself. The shadowy, deep-pocketed John Blount—who may have ties to Lady Elizabeth, Mary’s younger sister—hires Jack to murder Jeffrey of Shoreditch, a “wheedling, whining” man, but since Jack is squeamish about violence, he tries to delegate the killing to a tougher character. Everything goes wrong, and over the next few days, Jack struggles to deal with the dire consequences of his bungling. Another murder, of a highborn Spaniard, puts fresh enemies on his trail. The wry humor of Jack’s plight tends to overshadow the crime solving, such that the solution to the murders comes as a bit of an anticlimax. Jecks brings the seamy side of Tudor London to life through rich, atmospheric descriptions of its taverns, brothels, and streets. Agent: Joanna Swainson, Hardman & Swainson (U.K.).