The Bawdy Basket: An Elizabethan Theater Mystery Featuring Nicholas Bracewell (Elizabethan Theater Mysteries)
On top of the usual, waggishly presented intrigues facing Elizabethan  London's most calamity-prone theater company, Westfield's Men, come still more  dire threats, in Edward Marston'sThe Bawdy Basket: The troupe risks  losing both its creative genius and its financial backing. Troubles begin with  the execution of Gerald Quilter, a prosperous businessman unjustly convicted of  murder, whose son Frank has recently joined Westfield's Men. Despite his fellow  actors' misgivings, Frank is determined to clear his father's name, and Nicholas  Bracewell, the company's stage manager and resourceful troubleshooter, agrees to  help--even if it costs him his job. Meanwhile, playwright Edmund Hoode, renowned  for his unrequited romances ("Your whole life is one long, desperate, lovesick  sigh," another player reminds him), seems finally to have found a woman to share  his heart. Yet she insists that Hoode forsake the stage and pen sonnets solely  in her tribute. As disaster looms in his troupe's future, Bracewell's search for  reasons behind the framing of Gerald Quilter leads to a young woman peddler, and  also attracts the predatory attention of a moneylender anxious to bankrupt the  pleasure-seeking patron of Westfield's Men.Marston, a prolific author of historical mysteries (also published under his  real name, Keith Miles), vividly re-creates the scents and sensibilities of  16th-century England, with carefully applied strokes of humor. This 12th  installment of his Nicholas Bracewell series offers fewer insights into its  protagonist than didThe Silent  Woman, and slightly less menace thanThe Roaring Boy. But its  intricate conspiracies and swashbuckling action giveThe Bawdy Basketdramatic urgency deserving of repeated ovations.--J. Kingston Pierce