Exclusive interview with author Kathy Lynn Emerson and a review of her new novel about a murder mystery in the court of Elizabeth I
Rating: Three Stars
“I had been thinking for some time that it would be interesting to write about the true story of a sixteenth century attempt to find an English bride for Ivan the Terrible of Russia,” says author Kathy Lynn Emerson. “This was part of trade negotiations with the Muscovy Company and involved several political factions at the court of Elizabeth I of England, all of whom spied on and plotted against each other.”
Emerson writes a story intertwined with interesting historical facts. Her description of London is very different than we would see it today. The lead character Rosamund has to really think and figure things out. She only has one close relationship, with her maid. Her maid is Polish, which is unusual. Pretty intrepid to begin with, the heroine’s growth is to try to think more before she acts.
A lady-in-waiting to Lady Mary, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, Mistress Rosamond has been separated from her husband for two years. She’s been recruited against her will to spy on her mistress by Sir Francis Walsingham. To save the life of her husband who’s in Russia she must help him. Lady Mary is chosen to be the wife of Tsar Ivan. Not all the nobles at court want this alliance to happen. There is a murder. Rosamond realizes that she and Lady Mary are in danger. Can Rosamond save their lives?
Emerson says she found plenty of material for a story involving espionage and murder in the court of Elizabeth I, but still needed a believable fictional protagonist. “I found what I was looking for in the Face Down Mysteries, a series I wrote some years ago. It was published in the U.S. between 1997 and 2007. The sleuth in those novels is Susanna, Lady Appleton, an Elizabethan gentlewoman who is an expert on poisonous herbs, but by the time I stopped writing the series she was getting on in years, at least for someone who lived in the sixteenth century. For this new series, I wanted someone younger. I found her in Lady Appleton’s husband’s illegitimate daughter, Rosamond.”
“Rosamond is the Mistress Jaffrey of these Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries,” says Emerson. “And to my mind, she is the ideal sleuth…young, wealthy, clever, opinionated and at odds with nearly everyone in her family, including her husband Rob Jaffrey. When the story opens, she’s come to regret burning so many bridges. All it takes is a threat to Rob’s life to pull her into the intrigue surrounding the alliance with Tsar Ivan. Since they’ve been estranged, he’s gone adventuring in Muscovy [the old name for Russia].”
Russia was a new country to Emerson and it took more research. Emerson read everything she could find on Moscow and Muscovy during that era. Fortunately, several Englishmen left accounts of the time they spent there and recorded their impressions in minute detail.
Murder in the Queen’s Wardrobe is the author’s 51st published book. The first one, published in 1984, was a nonfiction look at sixteenth century women. “These days I maintain A Who’s Who of Tudor Women online, adding to it and updating entries already there on a regular basis. I call this my hobby. My husband calls it my obsession. There are currently over 2,000 entries.”
Emerson won the Agatha Award for nonfiction in 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries: The Art and Adventure of Sleuthing Through the Past. This award is presented annually at the Malice Domestic mystery convention.
After Murder in the Queen’s Wardrobe, the series continues with Murder in the Mercery in March 2016.
Emerson lives in the mountains of western Maine, on a Christmas tree farm. She was born in Liberty, New York, in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.
Murder in the Queen’s Wardrobe: An Elizabethan Spy Thriller, A Mistress Jaffrey Mystery Series: A Mistress Jaffrey Mystery (Book 1). Hardcover: 256 pages, Publisher: Severn House Publishers; First World Publication edition (March 1, 2015), Language: English, ISBN: 9780727884596 $29.95.
