The Queen’s Men

An Agents of the Crown Novel

By Oliver Clements (Leopoldo & Co., an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. , 2012)

Genre: historical fiction

Pages: 399

Via: Library

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

There’s plenty of both in this Double-Oh-Seven type drama set in 16^th century England and the court of Queen Elizabeth.

Dr. Dee, an alchemist who doubles as “the original MI6 agent” is assigned a dangerous mission to re-create a weapon from antiquity. But if it falls into the wrong hands, it could threaten the crown and bring down the Empire.

Is this historical fiction thingy all it’s cracked up to be?

Kimber Klue: If She Who Must Be Obeyed (sort of) has to invent ways to avoid finishing or resuming a book, that’s a sign. As in, nothing good. So it was with The Queen’s Men. Here’s the 4-1-1:

The Basics

It’s the 16th century. Queen Elizabeth is on the throne. Things aren’t so great for England.

Catholic Spain marches its armies into the Low Countries, threatening the destruction of England’s only ally. Queen Elizabeth must act decisively, ordering her friend Dr. John Dee – scientist, philosopher, and spy – to rediscover the long-lost secret of the world’s first ultimate weapon: “Greek fire.” But re-creating that is easier said than done. And in a world fraught with coded message, ruthless enemies, and deadly plots, Dee’s mission to secure his nation’s future may prove impossible unless he deploys the most effective weapon of all: Intelligence.

Annoying Assumptions

This book has a bunch of England-ish landmarks: the Tower. Whitehall. Palace intrigue and excesses. Forbidden romance. Foiled assassination attempts. Catholics vs. Protestants. Spain threatening to invade and bring Catholicism and the Inquisition with it. England hanging on by its fingernails. Mary Queen of Scots waiting in the wings, plotting and conniving and biding her time. There’s also greed. Gallons and gallons of wine. Corruption. Filth. Opulence. Despair. Waste. Cruelty. A comet. Dreams. Double crosses and triple crosses. People get sick a lot (it’s a miracle anyone survived this era, given the lack of sanitation and basic hygiene). It also seems like someone is threatened with arrest, treason, and hanging every five minutes.

Dense and Prickly

The plot is complicated and peopled with enough characters to sink the Spanish Armada. It weaves a tangled web of lies, deceit, man hunts, and assassination plots as the nation’s “intelligencers” tail one another around the country, spying on one another endlessly. There’s also a Queen look-alike. Secret messages. “Greek fire.” And what of those who really are trying to kill the Queen? Just because the Guild of the Black Madonna can’t be found doesn’t mean they’ve given up. Having pledged to kill the Queen and failed, what is the Guild up to now? And where?

Peanut Butter

Clocking in a nearly 400 pages, The Queen’s Men is a prodigious read. The writing style reflects the period and is thus as dense as peanut butter in places. The initial chapters were plodding. It picks up later. But who wants to stick around that long?

Assumptions, Annoying

There are a lot of British-isms in this book. That’s great if you live in the U.K. Not so much is you live anywhere else. The author assumes you know what he’s talking about and doesn’t bother to explain words like “starling” (commonly known as a species of bird but used in the book as part of a bridge structure) or “naft” or “lurcher” (an Old English word for a crossbred dog, but more commonly understood as someone who’s probably unsteady on their feet). And so on.

Btw, the “Low Countries”? That’s the Netherlands. In case you’re wondering. (We had to look it up, too.) No, we’re not going to Google words or phrases that are repeated and over without an explanation. Who has time for that? So annoying.

Split Decision

So we have a split decision on this. One of us found The Queen’s Men a slog. Too many bunny trails. Slow as molasses in January. Needlessly coarse and profane. Rating: 2.0.

The other thought it was an okay action/adventure tome. Think Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood meets Daniel Craig’s Bond. James Bond. Only in tights and a doublet. Rating: 3.0

So:

Our Rating: 2.5