The Reluctant Assassin

April 30, 2018
In Buckley’s uneven 16th Tudor mystery (after 2017’s A Deadly Betrothal), gentlewoman Ursula Blanchard’s nine-year-old son, Harry, disappears one day while riding near her house in the English countryside. The subsequent frantic search triggers Ursula’s kidnapping. The rogues who seize her, who claim to be “loyal servants of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth,” blackmail her into undertaking a murderous mission in exchange for Harry’s life. The improbability of this scheme is a major plot weakness, and crucial events that take place outside of Ursula’s immediate surroundings lead to an awkward break in her first-person narrative. More successful are the depictions of real-life figures of the period, such as spymaster Francis Walsingham and ambitious society fixture Bess Hardwick. But the most fascinating character is the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, who exudes a powerful charm. The action builds to an exciting climax in which all the series regulars are well employed. Essentially a thriller, this entry shows that Buckley is better suited to straight mysteries.

May 1, 2018
In the sixteenth Ursula Blanchard mystery, the year is 1581, and Ursula's nine-year-old son has been abducted, requiring the secret agent in the employ of her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I, to bring all her sleuthing skills to the fore. The Blanchard mysteries are distinguished by their contemporary feel, from the dialogue to the stories to Ursula's modern-day sensibilities?all of which are managed shrewdly without anachronism. That's because Buckley has a good feel for the historical period, but she uses it without displaying her research too obviously, in a way that would pull readers out of the story. Rather, she focuses on character in the context of a particular historical moment, and she does so at a consistently high level.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2018
Being related to a queen is no sinecure for a widow with heavy responsibilities.Ursula Stannard, whose status as the illegitimate half sister of Queen Elizabeth I has often pressed her into service as a spy for the queen (A Deadly Betrothal, 2017, etc.), is taking a breather to raise her young son, watch over her estates and stud farm, and enjoy life. At Richmond Palace for a visit with Elizabeth, who wants her advice on a proposed marriage to the French Prince Francis, Duke of Alen�on and Anjou--who's Catholic and therefore not beloved of the English people--Ursula must also fight off marriage proposals. Although Elizabeth, who's already dealing with the difficult problem of Mary Stuart, a magnet for schemes to restore Catholicism to England, enjoys the prince's company, she has qualms about both the physical side of marriage and the power he'd have over her. Agreeing to inquire into local feelings, Ursula is delighted to go home to Hawkswood even though she must hire a new stud groom and a tutor for 9-year-old Harry. The new tutor turns out to be the son of her trusted servant Brockley, a son he never knew he had. Disaster strikes when Harry vanishes while out riding; a painstaking search turns up no sign of him. Then Ursula is attacked, her dogs are killed, and she's rolled in a carpet and carried off. Her captors reveal that they're holding Harry as a guarantee that she'll agree to assassinate Mary. They even give her a phial of hemlock to do the deed. A visit to the queen and her spymaster gets her the permission she needs. As she goes to Mary's side pretending to seek her death, she leaves Brockley to do everything in his power to rescue Harry.Among the most action-packed of Buckley's always-engrossing looks at Elizabethan lives and times.

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