My whole life was a lie... but now I was play-acting again, this time as a servant boy, messenger for a renegade Catholic, who had entered the country illegally and was offering his services to the Scottish queen. Except he wasn’t. [p. 219]
London, 1590: Christoval Alvarez has lived in Duck Street, near St Barts Hospital, for some years, after fleeing the Inquisition in Portugal with his father: they have shared a life of secrets ever since. Jews have been banned from England for three hundred years, so Christoval -- Kit -- and his father attend church with the Christians: and the two share another secret which would surely doom them both.
A gifted physician, musician and mathematician, Kit is drawn into the web of spymaster Francis Walsingham, initially to assist with deciphering encrypted messages, but later to carry altered documents and entrap the players in what will eventually be known as the Babington plot. Kit is uneasy with the deceits involved, afraid of secret (possibly double) agent Robert Poley, and exhausted by Walsingham's demands: he'd rather be at the playhouse with his friend Simon.
Swinfen's descriptions of Tudor London are evocative, and her depiction of Kit's life has depth and credibility. There were a few typos ('pouring' over documents, 'leant' a hand, 'few if none') and I wasn't wholly convinced that, even in Tudor times, it would take more than an hour to walk from Tower Hill to Lombard Street -- or that it would be any quicker on horseback. But I can forgive these minor errors, for The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez was a gripping read, with some hefty moral issues and plenty of derring-do. I'll read more in this series.
Fulfils the ‘The word “secret” in the title’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment