Sacred Treason by James ForresterMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I thought this was a lot of fun, and it did some things I wasn't expecting. It's good to be surprised.
This is one of those "follow the clues to locate the deeply significant object" kinds of books, where the main character is also trying not to get killed while solving the mystery. The action starts right away, no throat-clearing or establishing the setting, and I like that. Our main character is given an important (though confusing) document, actually a journal, right at the start, and immediately is getting chased around, though he has no idea what's going on. People are being hunted down and killed over the journal, treated as traitors to the crown, and Clarenceaux realizes he won't survive without solving the mystery. With the widow of the friend who gave him the journal, he must travel across England, chased by Walsingham's brutal servant, and figure out the meaning in the journal entries.
As the book is set in the time of Elizabeth, and I have a number preconceived notions about the government and how public figures behaved in those day, I was surprised by some of the things I saw here. But the author is a historian, so I had to change my mind about some stuff. For example, the people here are modest, even prudish, but they're okay taking baths together. (Just don't stare.) And in a few places, Clarenceaux negotiates with representatives of the crown and answers back in a way that I thought would never happen in those days. I guess the movies I've seen and books I've read set in those times always emphasize the lawlessness of powerful men--which definitely did happen--while this book shows us that men in government could also be mindful of the legal limits they were supposed to observe. The book shows us some of the brutality we associate with that time, some of the horrible treatment of prisoners and suspects, but also shows how men (here, it's Sir William Cecil) were attempting to be fair and just.
The result of writing the book that way is that it felt more real, not less; the people sound more like modern folks we live with and see every day, instead of making the characters essentially foreign, as I'm used to seeing them portrayed.
Altogether, this is a successful and entertaining book. Excellent pacing, lots of action, good characters to root for--nice. I wouldn't have minded a touch more depth in the story, some subplots or greater backstory or something, but I liked it fine as is. Probably make a good screenplay.
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