‘A Serpent in the Garden’ is the first in Howard Linskey’s new ‘William Shakespeare Mysteries‘ series. It is set in Shakespeare’s ‘lost years’ of 1585 to 1592. A seven-year-period when Will left Stratford with no prospects but managed to earn enough money to buy a partnership in a London theatre company. Linskey’s story gives one explanation of how the son of a disgraced glover was able to achieve this seemingly impossible task, in the class ridden society of Elizabethan England.
The story picks up Shakespeare’s life in London at the end of this seven-year period. Will’s talents as an actor and ‘playmaker’ are starting to blossom, but with no money and the theatres closed by the plague, Shakespeare needs to look for a patron. He starts to cultivate Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, a renowned hedonist, and favourite of the Queen. Wriothesley coerces Shakespeare into investigating the death of his cousin Lady Celia Vernon, whom he believes murdered by her brutal husband. The Earl feels that Shakespeare, as a nobody, can carry out the investigation without drawing the same level of attention that the Earl would.
Shakespeare’s connection to Wriothesley brings him to the attention of Robert Cecil, the Queen’s spymaster. Cecil forces Will to spy on Wriothesley, who has a score to settle with him. He also suspects the Earl of being an atheist, a grievous act of treason in a time when to deny the existence of God was to deny the divine right of sovereigns to rule.
Caught in a bitter power struggle between two key players in Elizabethan England, danger lurks in every shadow. Shakespeare has to use his genius for conspiracy and intrigue to spin the improbable into the plausible to survive.
This gives some fascinating insight into Shakespeare’s life and work, not least a nod and a wink to a possible inspiration for Richard III. It also shows a cross section of life in Elizabethan London with plenty of drinking and tavern brawls with Kit Marlowe, Richard and James Burbage, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nashe and many of the other leading figures of the time. However, this can lead to some very long scenes between people talking in taverns. There are also some rather long debates between Shakespeare and his love interest, Rosalind Rivere, over morality. The book is a bit of a slow burner, but ‘A Serpent in the Garden’ is worth persevering with, there is a very nice twist and some artful blending of Shakespeare’s work into the narrative. This is definitely a book for Shakespearian Scholars and, fans of Peter Tonkins and Steven Veerapen.
Alan Bardos is the author of the Johnny Swift thriller series.
