1573, Recently widowed by her 3rd husband, Ursula (Queen Elizabeth's 1/2 sister) has returned home to Hawkswood & is raising her son, who is the child of her 2nd husband (conceived after the death of #3)....

Her neighbor, Jane Cobbold, a self-righteous gossip-monger, has purposefully spread malicious rumors of Ursula & her son. When Jane is murdered in her garden, a fanciful but cheap knife thrust into her heart, Ursula's man, Brockley is arrested for Jane's murder, even though it was not his knife nor he was anywhere in the vicinity.

The Constable, being a bigoted, misogynistic, pig-headed man refuses to investigate the murder, content with assuming Brockley is guilty.

When Ursula begins to investigate, both Lord Cecil Burghley & Frances Walsingham step back, but something isn't right in Walsingham's offices.

Ursula's life is threatened, a midnight intruder attempts to murder Brockley, one of the guard dogs is poisoned, and then Ursula sets a trap for the murderer as he attempts to poison her....

Finally, with the help of a Captain from Dover castle, Ursula is able to unmask the murderer.

I liked the story, it certainly held my interest, but I identified the murderer immediately as the clue is barely hidden. (Not going to tell you where, as that would be a "spoiler")

I took off 1/2 Star because of the unwillingness of Cecil & Walsingham to help Brockley for fear it would put them in a precarious position when all along in the series Brockley has aided & abetted them while doing the Crown's bidding. ( )

This is the twelfth book in the series of Ursula Stannard Elizabethan mysteries. The execution of the Duke of Norfolk near the beginning of the book marks the end of the novels dealing with the complex plotting involving the Duke, fellow nobles from the North, the Italian banker Ridolfi and, of course, the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots. But of course there is another plot in the offing, this time a much less significant and non-historically based one, around a young nobleman working for the spymaster Francis Walsingham, who commits a murder for which Ursula's loyal manservant Roger Brockley is blamed. The plot and the key characters are as engaging as ever, involving the usual travels round the country looking for clues, to back up their belief in Roger's innocence; to the reader it is fairly clear from quite early on who the culprit is. Yet again, at the very end, Ursula swears to live a quiet life from now on with no more adventures, but I wouldn't believe this even if I hadn't seen that a further novel in the series is being published on 1 October. ( )