Murder by Misrule by Anna CastleMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a pretty fun book. Probably more like 3.5 stars, tbh, but I'll round up. This the first time I've finished a book I was reading on an iPad in ages, so it's right for me to give it some love.
This Elizabethan mystery focuses on a young Francis Bacon, an up-and-coming lawyer (barrister? solicitor? I dunno) at Gray's Inn. A fellow lawyer is murdered and he's tasked with finding the killer. The crime is tied to illegal Catholic propaganda being imported from the continent, and leads to additional deaths. The story reads pretty quick, and the details of the setting are well used, IMO.
Partway through I wanted more from Francis Bacon. The POV switches to younger lawyers working with him and spends (at first) too much time with them. But before the end, I was finding Tom and Trumpet more interesting, and was glad to see the story focus on what they were up to. (I won't explain. You won't guess. Maybe you will. Probably not.) Then we went back at last to Francis Bacon again, who I'm pretty sure is supposed to be the star. Hard to tell.
Anyway, I think it'd be a better novel if it were more obvious who the book was really about, you know?
But I liked it well enough and will look for the sequel.
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