An Honorable Murder — Philip Gooden

It is the summer of 1604, many years after the defeat of the Armada, and the Spanish are in London to negotiate a peace treaty. Nick Revill's theater company -- newly promoted to the King's Men now that James I is on the throne -- are given a ceremonial role at the celebrations. But not everybody welcomes this outbreak of peace.

Sir Walter Raleigh, imprisoned in the Tower of London, is far from inactive -- he has many friends on the outside who may try to sabotage the negotiations. Nick, meanwhile, has been invited by Shakespeare's rival, Ben Jonson, to take part in a masque at Somerset House, where the Spanish are lodged. He soon finds himself unwillingly caught up in a conspiracy.

During a rehearsal, the courtier Sir Philip Blake dies an apparently accidental death when he tumbles from a chair in which he is being lowered to the stage. But this is only the first of a series of suspicious deaths, and Nick must look hard at those around him: the robust Ben Jonson, once imprisoned for killing a fellow player; the embittered and satirical playwright Martin Barton; the smooth courtier Giles Cass; and Maria More, devoted companion to the bereft Lady Blake.