The Queen's Lies, Clements - B+

                            This is the fourth in the 'Agents of the Crown' series, and Dr. John Dee faces two almost insurmountable challenges. He and his aide create a rifled cannon that in a test destroys a French ship so completely that the navy's treasurer hands him 1,000 silver pounds and tells him to deliver 50 in one year. The money is stolen and Dee's aide is murdered. He has no idea how to build the cannons on his own and can't do it without the money. Then, Catholic enemies from the continent murder his household staff and kidnap his son. As background, Walsingham, Dee's boss, is up to his old tricks of trying to find anything to show the queen that her cousin, Mary, is plotting against her. Elizabeth, on the other hand, prefers leaving things well enough alone regarding Mary. These books show how incredibly complex affairs were in Elizabethan England, and this one ends with Mary dead and Elizabeth livid at those who executed her, and fearful that this will provoke a Spanish invasion. The year is 1587.