Treachery (2014) by S. J. Parris
GoodReads meta-data is 540 pages rated 4.21 by 3,566 litizens.
Genre: Krimi; Species: Period.
DNA: Old Blighty.
Verdict: Ugh!
Tagline: Wheels within wheels.
The perennial exile Giordano Bruno is on the case again, accompanying Sir Phillip Sidney to Plymouth in the year of 1585.
There they meet Sir Francis Drake, and a great many other old and new salts. A death occurs on Drake’s ship while at anchor in port. Was it suicide or murder? He wants to find out before setting out to kill more Spaniards.
Sidney pushes Bruno into investigating as a favour to Drake.
As if murder is not enough to motivate Bruno, there is also a missing book of the New Testament, an old nemesis, and assorted other villains.
I needed a scorecard to keep track of the red herrings, and just about everyone is a crook of one kind or another, including our hero. As usual the forlorn Bruno is dead sexy to a beautiful woman in the usual way. Murder and mayhem ensues.
There is a perplexing cast of character submerged into elaborately described detail of the time and place: sights and smells, hygiene (lack of) and disease (much of), and so on, and on, and on, and on. And on. It seems the author strove for 600-pages but succumbed to exhaustion. I know I did.The detail is piled high mistaking altitude for entertainment.