Queen Without a Crown (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court)
Ursula Blanchard, lady-in-waiting and spy extraordinaire, returns in a new Elizabethan mystery steeped in suspense and historical detail. In addition to her duties as a Lady of the Bedchamber to her half sister, Queen Elizabeth, she also undertakes certain delicate missions for the Crown. Despite her marriage to Hugh Stannard, there is no escaping into private life for Ursula. On assignment in the north to ferret out a group of rebel noblemen intent on rescuing and reinstating the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, she is also privately commissioned by Mark Easton, Lord Sussex’s envoy, to solve a 20-year-old murder. As Ursula delves deep into the past to solve a tricky cold case, political passions in the present threaten to boil over. The worthy Ursula is an estimable heroine, and Buckley’s confident mastery of sixteenth-century British history lends an air of authenticity to her cleverly spun adventures. --Margaret Flanagan