A Tip For The Hangman, Epstein - B+

      This superb novel is about Christopher 'Kit' Marlowe, on scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and recruited, while a graduate student, as a spy by Sir Christopher Walsingham, the Queen's secretary. His first task was to work as a footman for Mary, Queen of Scots.  He exceeded all expectations when he deciphered her letters to Catholic plotters on the continent. He worked for Walsingham at the castle where Mary was held for the five months between her arrest and execution. The Privy Council asked the university to award his degree, which he had not finished, and released him from service, but with the admonition to stay in London as he may be needed again.

     Five years later, he was the toast of London, a successful playwright when the summons to Whitehall came. Another cipher, another plotting Papist, but this time it was his patron, Lord Strange. He winds up playing a double game, letting Strange think he's a Papist supporting the Catholic cause. It's a road that is almost impossible to negotiate. After Walsingham dies, Sir Robert Cecil takes over, and does not trust Marlowe. The Catholics were never sure of him either. Death, treachery and double dealing abound.  And, Kit meets his end at the hands of a team of lowlives in a bar in 1593.                                                                                                              History does not know why Marlowe was killed. The endless theories are almost 21st century in their varied hypotheses: it was the Catholics, the Queen's men, Sir Walter Raleigh, a debt collector or perhaps, it was no more than a barroom scuffle. This is a  historical novel of the first order. It artfully delivers a great feel for the time and places: Cambridge and London, the late 16th century. N.B. The explicitness of Marlowe's homosexual relationship with Tom Watson can be/ is  off-putting.