Queen Without A Crown (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court) [Hardcover]

After reading the other Ursula Blanchard mysteries when they were released many years ago, I thought the series was finished. Truthfully, Buckley could have stopped with the last book, but I'm happy that she didn't. I was interested to see how the characters had changed, but they really haven't. The mystery itself is twofold - a love interest challenged by an old murder, and of course Elizabethan era intrigue. I was mostly interested in the love interest and old poisoning angle. It was a very good weekend read.

Fiona Buckley's latest installment in her Ursula Blanchard mystery series set in Elizabeth I's court, Queen without a Crown, will please her fans. (The author's real name is Valerie Anand, and the first in the series is To Shield the Queen, 1997.) Ursula is back in action on a double mission, one from Elizabeth and a private one that Ursula hopes will reap the funds needed to save her husband's estate from debtors. Once again champions of Mary of Scotland are rebelling in order to put a Catholic queen back on the throne, and Ursula is sent to identify where the remaining rebelling nobles are hiding after a successful suppression of the revolt. She will find more than Elizabeth I bargained for. But Ursula is also in search of evidence to prove the innocence of a young man's father, dead some twenty-three years. Mark Easton wishes to marry but the accusation that his father poisoned a rival years ago and then took his own life hangs over him as a shadow of disgrace so that his love's family view him as unacceptable. How to solve a mystery so lost in time? It seems hopeless from the beginning and only the dire need to save Hawkswood, the childhood estate of Hugh Stannard, her husband, gives Ursula any motivation to try such a doomed project.

Buckley has added some new engaging characters to the mix: Trewlany, an old friend of Brockley's from his days fighting for King Henry, whose creativity in adversity will hold your attention, a curmudgeonly old woman with a tendency toward larceny who shall remain nameless so as not to spoil the plot, and Lady Ann of Northumberland, a striking example of a woman warrior. Otherwise the familiar formula of the previous books in the series is deployed with the usual attention to historical precision, moral dilemmas, and suspenseful action.

The one aspect I found distracting at times was an insertion of a different narrative voice at odd intervals. The novel is told first person from the sleuth's perspective, as is often the case with mysteries. We are in the middle of the action, trying to sort out events past and present just as Ursula is. Except that at times, an older Ursula from some future point after the action of the book speaks up and pulls us out of the world of the book. For example, when Ursula and her family and household set off to visit a painter, Arbuckle, who is going to paint Meg's portrait: "It was quite some time before I understood that fate was going to entangle Master Arbuckle very thoroughly in the northern rebellion and the affairs of Mark Easton, and that as I walked with the others along Peascod Street towards this first meeting, I was taking the first steps on a very perilous road." This seems a clumsy way to build suspense, especially from an author who is so good at building it by more organic means. I prefer to stay in the midst of the action. She does this again later in the novel at a moment of intense action and grief, a moment when we least want to be distanced from the characters and the emotions: "After we left his village next day, we never again met Thomas Dennison, vicar of St John's-On-The-Hill, but I think he was a man both loved and respected by his parishioners...." This is a small point, but I'd have sacrificed the information expressed through this device of the later-knowing narrator in favor of immediacy.
Fans of Fiona Buckley will be glad for Ursula's reappearance on the scene in this exciting and charming mystery.

Ursula Blanchard would probably fit into the 21st century. She's a very independent resourceful woman who can ride well, use a knife, and is very resourceful when confronting her foes. She's a member of Queen Elizabeth I court and besides sitting around and embroidering and sharing gossip, she is the Queen's right hand lady when it comes to venturing into parts unknown to protect Elizabeth's interests and most importantly, her life! There's always these plots afoot to eject Elizabeth from her throne mostly from the supporters of Mary Queen of Scotland who is now imprisoned in a castle in the northernmost part of England. Ursula is asked to investigate these recent rumors of a rebellion against Elizabeth. Also the main story is trying to solve a murder that happened twenty years ago so that a young man may marry the woman he loves. Ursula is torn because her husband Hugh is ill and she's afraid to leave him. On the other hand they are in danger of losing their land because of some previous investments Hugh made that failed. Ursula ultimately is up to both tasks and ventures out on horseback to uncover both mysteries. She of course meets danger but is lucky to have Brockley, her servant and his friend to come to her rescue. What is amazing about these stories is not just the political issues of the times but the lower life expectancy of people. It makes for a more complicated story because women and men have been married several times because their spouses have died from childbirth, plague, accidents, and it goes on. Life for women, especially was tough. Ursula expresses relief that Hugh is unable to give her any children because she herself almost died giving birth to her beloved daughter, Meg. She also lost a newborn son in a previous marriage. A woman she encounters on her quest says to her, "I'm glad I never married." It's an interesting comment because it's been written that Elizabeth herself was terrified of childbirth and remained unmarried of course, throughout her reign! I've enjoyed the other Ursula Blanchard mysteries and of course, the historical background that goes with them.