The assassin you have when you're not having an assassin!

That's Jack Blackjack who's as an assassin in the pay of John Blount, who calls Thomas Parry master. Through an inordinate amount of bungling normally Blackjack ends up with someone else killing the mark. Blackjack takes the credit, which he's mostly happy to do as its lifted him out of poverty. He's become a man of substance, if a servant makes one that. The balancing act, the delusions that Jack juggles are all part of the black comic figure. Still when he finally does kill someone, even that has an awful comedic side.
This time jack finds himself in the thick of politics with a whiff of heresy. Not a comfortable place to be.
I must admit too becomming quite dizzy by Jack's tortured thinking as he tries to puzzle out the where's and whyfores, looking for illumination about who the enemy is. At times I felt like I'd sipped more than my fair share of questionable wine just like Jack. A headache seems a certainity. Once again the exploits of Jeck's self serving hero proves an amusing Tudorl mystery gallop.

A Severn House ARC via NetGalley ( )

If you're looking for a new historical mystery series to enjoy—particularly if you're interested in Tudor history—you won't go wrong with Michael Jecks' Jack Blackjack series. Jack is, to put it bluntly, the Tudor equivalent of a fixer and hit man for powerful men men who are hoping to bring about the rule of Elizabeth I. The era is bloody (hence, Bloody Mary) and priests who refuse to follow Mary I's rigid Catholicism are regularly burned at the stake.

Jack's current task in this violent world is to track down the former wife and son of an executioner, but things are not as they seem: the identity of this woman, her child, the executioner, and other players is not what Jack is originally told. Trying to find the woman and to understand the politics underlying her disappearance takes Jack through a twisting series of subplots.

There are several books in this series preceding Death Comes Hot, but I had no trouble stepping into the middle of things. I'll go back and read the earlier titles, but you can start wherever you'd like.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions are my own. ( )