With A Conspiracy of Violence Susanna Gregory has slightly changed direction; only slightly because she has moved from one historical period (mediaeval) to another (Restoration). The detective has changed from Matthew Bartholomew, a Cambridge teacher and public physician, to Thomas Chaloner, a reluctant spy for the Secretary of State who has recently returned from Holland. The historical background reflects the violence and vacillating loyalties of those nearest to King Charles after the Restoration. Susanna Gregory captures excellently the sights, sounds, smells and physical unpleasantness of the streets of contemporary London. She skillfully combines historical characters, e.g. Samuel Pepys and John Thurloe, with her fictional characters and with those whose names occur in history but on whom she puts her own interpretation.
The most amusing part of the book for me was the hungry, aggressive turkey. It appears first in a shop selling game where it is supposed to be for a Christmas feast but no-one dares to get near enough to kill it. As the dealer said, "I am a game dealer. Game means someone is supposed to have shot it." The bird has been bought by North, the non conformist preacher, but no-one can control it and all try to escape from it. It appears at intervals throughout the book and is very much alive until it is eventually eaten for Christmas.
It is a complicated plot, set at a time when murders and beheadings were commonplace and when heads of the supporters of the Commonwealth decorated the spikes on the Tower of London. Spies abound, characters change sides and loyalties, until it is not always clear who supports whom, doubtless a reflection of what it was like to be alive then.
This is perhaps not so much a detective story as a historical novel trying to unravel the plots and mysteries of the time. Thomas Chaloner, a real-life character, used by the author as her detective, is employed to investigate robberies, solve murders and even to find the gold reportedly buried in the Tower by the last Governor of the Tower, and incidentally mentioned by Pepys in his Diary. Through it all, Thomas is never sure whom he can trust or who is on the side of the King when rumours of regicide are still circulating. All Thomas really learns by the end of the book is that greed and ambition motivate those in power on both sides and neither side cares much whether he personally lives or dies.
The subtitle to the book is Decadence and Deceit in Restoration London and it is to be the first of a new series. The second in the series is Blood on the Sand and is already published in hardback.
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Rosemary Brown
There are thirteen books in the mediaeval series. The two most recent are The Tarnished Chalice in paperback and To Kill or Cure in hardback.