Plot summary:
In the time leading up to the Spanish Armada of 1588, a wealthy young man named Henry Gresham is recruited as a double agent by the powerful English politician Sir Francis Walsingham. His task is to pretend to be an agent for the Spanish while actually throwing as much confusion into their invasion plans as possible and spying for the English. His mentor dies without telling anyone else in England about his star recruit. Gresham is captured by the English while apparently fighting for the Spanish and threatened with torture before he is rescued at the last moment by Queen Elizabeth and - surprise! - his mentor, who turns out not to be dead after all.

Overall:
A friend lent me this book and described it as swashbuckling. I hesitated to include it in the crime genre but the Wikipedia article on the author describes the five Gresham novels as ‘crime thrillers’. It’s a fun read but not to be taken seriously as our hero twists and turns and escapes from numerous tight spots on the way to unsettling the armada. He justifies his apparent treachery to England on the grounds that only Spain can bring peace to the world and particularly avoid a civil war in England due to the lack of an heir to the throne. I was never quite sure if he was serious about this or not.

Plotting:
Predictable - I expected plenty of deceit and endless twists and I wasn’t disappointed. I learnt not to take anything at face value.

Characterisation:
The characters were probably good portrayals of the people of that time, according to their ‘station’ in life, as far as I know. However I don’t know enough about some leading figures to know if their characters ring true eg the Queen, Sir Frances Drake, Walsingham and Robert Cecil on the English side and the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the Duke of Parma on the Spanish side.

Dialogue:
Stephen largely avoids Elizabethan slang and mainly uses modern English, which doesn’t jar.

Setting and Description:
Stephen is an excellent writer and his descriptions of time and place are powerful. His shipboard scenes and battle scenes are wonderful. His description of the scene where Gresham is being tortured on the rack in the Tower of London is hair-raising.

Readability:
Very readable.

Sub-plots:
The main sub-plot is his relationship with a young half-English, half Spanish orphan named Anna. Gresham captures her on a Spanish ship and is then tasked with delivering her safely to her fiancé in France. Although this added some diversity and romantic interest to the story, she was entirely dispensable. The more relevant sub-plots concerned Gresham’s relationships with his friend/servant Mannion as well as Walsingham and Cecil. In the end, Gresham can trust nobody but himself and Mannion.

Read another by same author?
Maybe.

www.davidkilner.com
Alan Jones70

The author does a very good job of taking his strong historical knowledge and knitting together a possible narrative. The fictional hero of Henry Gresham gets himself into some precarious and often unbelievable situations.

For me, I think the tension is probably spoiled slightly by the fact this is a prequel, and I've just completed reading the first two books.

The plot is a bit convoluted, with lots of double, triple crossing. However, yet again the knowledge from the previous books takes away a lot of the edge and excitement.

The book does provide an interesting perspective, with Gresham onboard the Armada and the Spanish being portrayed very sympathetically.

It isn't big on emotion or character development, but if you suspend your disbelief you'll probably enjoy it. Eric Bruce214 1 follower

My previous reading of naval historical fiction has been limited to Hornblower and Bolitho, so I was pleased to find that the hero was not a sailor but a spy . Being on board both Drake's galleon and a ship of the Spanish Armada was no mean achievement ; nor was having both English and Spanish assassins seeking to end your life . I almost gave this up at page 50 - my normal deciding point - but am glad I didn't. Clever plot twists and a dash of romance produced an enjoyable read and I shall try another in the series. Peter832 6

A prequel to a novel I'd largely forgotten, A Desperate Remedy, this one is set at the time of the Armada, and contains excellent descriptions of action and intrigue but also a few excesses. Henry Gresham is a spy for Walsingham who, in 1587, is desperate to stop the inevitable Armada; Gresham is a pawn in the power politics of the age, particularly opposed by Cecil. He ends up on the Spanish flagship of a sympathetically portrayed Medina-Sidonia as a beautiful woman distracts him before a finale in the Tower. A good story and an entertaining read, if occasionally too black and white Lisa Driscoll186 2

Very enjoyable. Good historical content. Darla324 1 follower

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