After an appearance on an NY talk show, Lee responds to the flirtations of one of the cameramen and takes him home. The next morning, she goes out for a coffee while her paramour slept. When she returns, she finds her apartment tossed and the guy dead, shot in the head. The cops immediately focus on Lee as the primary suspect, but Lee is convinced that something she said on the show is what resulted in the break-in and murder.
She read about four lines from the sonnet on the TV show. Has to be something hidden in the text. Authors of that period played word games in sonnets and plays so she has to find out what might've triggered someone to attack.
She goes back to where she accidently discovered the sonnet (a Massachusetts bookstore) and starts retracing her steps. With her advisor's help, they discover hidden in the wording the name of an English castle (more like a weekend retreat). Lee is still suspect #1 so she has to disguise her appearance and obtain false identification, passport, credit cards to get out to the UK (resourceful girl, right?).
After speaking with the current owners, she is attacked but manages to escape, but not without another clue - Queen Elizabeth I spent time at the estate before ascending the throne and after she became Queen.
Further investigation reveals more about the Queen than any known historical accounts. Facts that would completely change how 'the virgin Queen' would be viewed.
The trail continues to take odd twists and she tries to connect the dots that were first place in 1555 and have been placed almost continually to current day.
I'm sure some lovers of Dan Brown or Steve Berry will flip over this 2016 book. About two-thirds of the way through I started to tire of Lee's continued good fortune at turning over and correctly interpreting clues from 500 years previous. It all seemed to be tied into a pretty little bow. And as the trail finally comes to its terminus, I had that 'seriously?' feeling. But the book is well presented and thoroughly researched. It was OK and plenty of people will find it really enjoyable. I just had a bit of a hard time buying it.
ECD
Although I've liked some of Margolis' other works, I'm in agreement with East Coast Don that this one is not spellbinding. I love historical fiction, and the plot was interesting, but there were times when the story got lost in the details. I did not see the final twist coming, and like ECD wrote, I thought "really?" Although this book did not do it for me, the author's latest, President's day which is due out this month, is an excellent thriller.
ReplyDelete