Third in the Elizabeth I historical mystery series featuring The Queen herself and her entourage of fellow sleuths. In this book, they set out to solve the death of the Queen’s luteist, Geoffrey, while good queen Bess is preoccupied with the attentions of her Master of Horse, Robert Dudley rather than attending closely to matters of state. This book really took a nose dive in the quality and enjoyment department since the last one. Much more political intrigue and romance than mystery, and it just seemed a real departure from the entire tone and characterization of Elizabeth I from the previous two books. I plan to read at least one more—I actually have the next several in line here on my TBR—and if the next one hasn’t improved any, I’ll be stopping the series. I think it’s a pretty tough job trying to feature a prominent historical figure whose exploits have been pretty well documented like Elizabeth I’s have, and in this book, that comes crashing home with a loud bang, though the author did seem to pull it off fairly well in the first two. Even the secondary characters seemed “off” and not themselves as they were portrayed previously. Perhaps this was just a quickly cranked out entry in the series that didn’t have as much thought put into it as the first two, I don’t know. ( )

I just love all of this series which features Queen Elizabeth I as a detective solving all sorts of murders. These are just great fun fast books to read and historical true. ( )