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A review by archytas
Queen's Ransom by Fiona Buckley
3.0
This has the least plausible plot of any Elizabethan mystery I have yet read, and yes, that includes the Lady Grace mystery where she ran away and became a pirate with Drake dressed as a boy, and singlehandedly saved the battle from the crows nest. Still more plausible than this.
I'm not sure at this point what I am getting out of these novels. They are scant on historical detail, the invocation of the terror of this period is well done, but undermined at all turns by the ridiculous plot's need to have characters care deeply about it one moment and not at all the next. Ditto the characterisation, which seems good enough, until a character (and they all do this at some point in the book) makes an inexplicably out-of-character decision, usually to help the main character who is just furious with everyone at all times.
And yet, somehow, they seem to remain readable.
I'm not sure at this point what I am getting out of these novels. They are scant on historical detail, the invocation of the terror of this period is well done, but undermined at all turns by the ridiculous plot's need to have characters care deeply about it one moment and not at all the next. Ditto the characterisation, which seems good enough, until a character (and they all do this at some point in the book) makes an inexplicably out-of-character decision, usually to help the main character who is just furious with everyone at all times.
And yet, somehow, they seem to remain readable.