Why a Booktrail?
1580s: Based on a real person – An Italian monk who questioned the scientific teachings of the church and ended up having to flee for his life.
Treachery
What you need to know before your trail
1580s – Sir Francis Drake is the most popular man in England following his involvement with the Spanish.
The setting is Plymouth, on the eve of Sir Francis Drake’s departure to journey back to the Spanish ports. Sir Phillip Sidney is going with him as is his friend Bruno. But then they discover that one of Drake’s officers, RoBert Dunne, appears to have committed suicide. Bruno soon determines that murder is rather the case here and starts investigations to find the killer.
This is not just a straight forward murder however – for this is Elizabethan England and these are dangerous times. There is a lot of intrigue and danger just lurking in the background not to mention an ancient religious tome…
Travel Guide
Plymouth
Even if you’ve never been to Plymouth then you are transported with this novel – certainly the sights and sounds of the place during the 1500s. Turn the page and you hear the creak of the timbers, or is that the rustle of the sea. Mind your head, the sails up above look a bit unsteady flapping in the breeze.
“As we draw closer and Woolwich dock emerges through the mist I see a bustle of activity surrounding the large vessel: men rolling barrels and hefting great bundles tied in oil cloth, coiling ropes, hauling carts and barking orders that echo across the Thames with the shouts of gulls wheeling around the tops of the masts.”
Plymouth harbour
Hark is that the sound of a fish wife gutting the fish and dropping the entrails in to the sea? With all the sights, sounds and smells evoked then quite probably it would seem.
The swell of the sea and all that goes with the seafaring ways of the period are evoked with such clear and often amusing images as this that the reader can take part in the sailors banter and atmosphere on board –
“The last thing I need on my ship is a couple of poets getting under our feet and puking like children at the merest swell”
Have you sea legs, Master Bruno, or will you have your head in a bucket all the way to Plymouth?
Plymouth harbour and surrounding area today
The port of Plymouth and the surrounding area are a must to visit to gain a real sense of this book and to see it as SJ Parris has lovingly reconstructed it here for your literary pleasure – (The West Port is the place to go)
…..craning for the first sight of the harbour, but nothing could have prepared me for the spectacle of the fleet anchored in the Sound….
…though a harbour wall and into a smaller inlet they tell us is called Sutton Pool…
…narrow cobbled streets that curves steeply up from the harbour…
Booktrailer Review
Susan:@thebooktrailer
Welcome to the world of Elizabethan England and you couldn’t wish for a better guide, certainly not a more intriguing one than Giordano Bruno and Sir Philip Sidney.
The banter of course is what makes this book too as Giordano Bruno turns out to have quite a wicked sense of humor here and there is regular light-hearted banter with Sidney which really shone out and made the mood all the more authentic.
Ahoy! Your ship awaits to the new world.
Where Next?
