cover image Murder in the Queen’s Wardrobe: A Mistress Jaffrey Mystery

Murder in the Queen’s Wardrobe: A Mistress Jaffrey Mystery

Kathy Lynn Emerson. Severn, $29.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7278-8459-6

Fans of Emerson’s historical mysteries will be intrigued by the debut of grown-up Mistress Rosamond Jaffrey as “intelligence gatherer” in this first in a new Tudor series. Negotiations for an English princess to marry Russia’s Ivan the Terrible ensnare Rosamond and several other characters from the author’s Face Down series. High-spirited, educated, and independent, Rosamond is apparently ill suited to the position of gentlewoman to Lady Mary Hastings, cousin to Queen Elizabeth, a role Rosamond reluctantly accepts in order to protect her estranged husband, who has accompanied an English trading company to Russia. Planted in Lady Mary’s household to report conversations in Russian, Rosamond struggles first with boredom, then with growing concern as a death and subsequent attacks on members of the household lure her to investigate who and why someone would want to commit murder. Emerson draws on her solid knowledge of the period to evoke vividly daily life in late 16th-century England. Agent: Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Mar.)