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A Play Of Treachery (2009)

by Margaret Frazer(Favorite Author)

4.01 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0425223337 (ISBN13: 9780425223338)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Berkley

series

Joliffe the Player

review 1: Fifth in this series by an author of fifteenth century mysteries good at giving cultural and social details of the historical context. In this one, Joliffe is sent to France, the city of Rouen, where he becomes immersed in the intrigues of the household of Lady Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford a beautiful and very wealthy young widow, niece of an influential bishop, who both the English and French forces would like to employ as an instrument in their struggles for enduring power in Normandy. Joliffe, while serving as a clerk, also is trained in the art of spying and information-gathering. The character Lady Jacquetta truly existed, and would later become the great-grandmother of Henry VIII.
review 2: Margaret Frazer has two mystery series, both of them taking p... morelace in medieval England - Sister Frevisse and Joliffe. While Sister Frevisse is a nun and somewhat cloistered, Joliffe is an actor, or player, and former scholar. He has provided investigative services to various men of power and otherwise spends his time as actor and playwright with a traveling troupe of actors.In this story, a patron of his, the Bishop of Winchester, requests that Joliffe journey to English France in the company of an archbishop to join the household of the Duchess Jacquetta, the young, recently widowed wife of the late Duke of Bedford. The Duke was responsible for managing England's French possessions for the young King of England. His death plus the recent betrayal of the Duke of Burgundy are throwing England's ability to hold its French possessions into serious doubt.Joliffe is sent to Rouen undercover as a chastened English secretary to the Duchess, and he's supposed to learn spycraft once there so that he can observe and relay matters of national interest to those who need to know it. He realizes that there are many layers of intrigue, and his newly gained skills of self-defense serve him well. less

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