London, the summer of 1558. Concern grows once more about the health of Queen Mary – she is pregnant once again, and the appearance of an heir would cause a significant shift in the corridors of power in London and beyond. Jack Blackjack, the assassin in the pocket of Princess Elizabeth, is more concerned with the disappearance of his new tenant, a Dutch merchant.
His primary concern is with the fact that the merchant owes him money, but it soon becomes about the fact that everyone seems to think that he killed him, and one of his paramours too. As Jack’s spymaster, Sir John Blount, joins the hunt for Jack, Jack himself finds himself at the centre of a plot against… well, who, exactly? And why?
Book nine of the Jack Blackjack series – you can find reviews of all of them on my blog, just follow the links down below – and it’s more of the same sort of thing. Of course, this is a very high quality “sort of thing”, so if you’ve enjoyed the previous books, you’ll enjoy this one just as much.
To explain for new readers, following the events in Rebellion’s Message, Jack Blackjack, a cowardly womaniser, is hired by Sir John Blount to act for Princess Elizabeth as an assassin. The point is that Jack has never deliberately killed anyone and isn’t really capable of doing so, despite being frequently being put into a position of having to do so. You’d think Blount would have figured it out after eight books, and now, for the first time, we get sections of the book from Blount’s point of view and get to see Jack through his eyes. There’s a third narrator as well for a few sections, which gives a view of another side of Jack as well. There’s a genuine surprise, I think, in Blount’s true opinions of Jack.
It’s hard to classify what sort of mystery novel this is. There is definitely a whodunit to be resolved but this is far more about the route to Jack finding some resolution so that people stop trying to kill him. Having said that, we do see a little more than self-preservation from Jack this time, as he is genuinely upset by the murder of his lover. All in all, this is probably closer to noir in form, with a layer of humour and history on top of it. All in all, it’s a lot of fun, just like the rest of the series.
Death Comes In Threes is out on 7th January in hardback and ebook from Severn House. Many thanks for the review e-copy.
The Jack Blackjack series:
In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel 