His previous services having earned him the goodwill of both the queen
and Baron Hundson, the queen's Lord Chamberlain and his sponsor, William
Shakespeare and his troupe are now a fixture performing at court.
Shakespeare is approached after a performance by Bessie Crumb, lover of
his recently murdered friend Christopher Marlowe, with what she claims
is Marlowe's last play. When Crumb is found dead and Marlowe's young son
goes missing, the Bard again finds himself acting in the uncomfortable
role of detective, trying to uncover the truth behind Bessie's death -
and the murder of Marlowe himself. Shakespeare follows a trail of past
sins and present plots to the heart of Elizabeth's court, increasingly
certain that this tale can end only with a royal head on a scaffold or
his own in a noose.
