Conspiracy (Giordano Bruno Series #5)

by S. J. Parris

Overview

A gripping murder mystery set in 16th-century France, as Giordano Bruno fights against multiple factions manipulating the succession of King Henry III.

December 1585: King Henry III of France is the last of his line. He has appointed a Protestant as his successor, which has caused a three-way war in his country. As a result, the king is in mortal fear of a coup being orchestrated by the ultra-conservative Catholic League.

Radical philosopher, ex-monk and spy Giordano Bruno, forced to return to Paris, is called upon by King Henry to unearth the motivation behind several mysterious but linked deaths. Each victim is connected to a larger plot to manipulate the royal succession; what they knew and who killed them is a mystery to be solved.

Meanwhile, Bruno makes an uneasy alliance with Charles Paget, a key figure in the community of English Catholics who tried to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. When Bruno is implicated in the death of Leonie, a member of the Queen Mother's "Flying Squadron," he is forced to call on Paget and his connections for help—and finds that it comes with a price, involving an old enemy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643135441
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	10/06/2020
Series:	Giordano Bruno Thriller Series , #5
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	951,718
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

S. J. Parris is the pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt. Since graduating from Cambridge, she has worked as a critic for a variety of newspapers and magazines as well as for radio and television. She currently writes for the Guardian in London and is the author of five novels in the Giordano Bruno mystery series. Visit S. J. Parris at www.sjparris.com.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/28/2020

In Parris’s brilliant fifth Giordano Bruno thriller (after Treachery), Bruno, an Italian expatriate and free thinker who has served as an operative for Elizabeth I’s legendary spymaster, Francis Walsingham, travels in 1585 to Paris to ask a friend of his, Fr. Paul Lefèvre, to intercede with the pope to reverse his excommunication for reading forbidden books. Lefèvre agrees to consider Bruno’s request, but within a week the priest is found floating in the Seine barely alive with his skull smashed; shortly before, he delivered a fire-and-brimstone sermon meant to “shake Paris to its foundations.” At his friend’s request, Bruno is brought to Lefèvre, who utters the word Circe before dying. Bruno’s curiosity about the murder and the cryptic last message gets official sanction when the French king summons Bruno and asks him to investigate. Parris is, as always, adept at maintaining a fraught atmosphere, and effortlessly integrates the whodunit plot with the power politics of the time. This superior blend of religious schisms and murder should win Parris new fans. Agent: Deborah Schneider, ICM Partners. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

One of my favorite authors, and she is unquestionably our greatest living writer of historical thrillers. Few novelists inhabit a setting—any setting—with such confidence and command; fewer still devise plots of such cunning and craft. If Hilary Mantel, John Le Carré, and Michael Connelly were to join forces, they might gift us with a novel as atmospheric, intelligent, and addictive as Treachery—or indeed any of Parris’s books featuring monk-turned-spy Giordano Bruno.

#1 NY Times bestselling author of The Woman in the A. J. Finn

Hugely enjoyable. It’s played straight, but never humorlessly so, and there’s just enough 'proper' history amid the intrigue to keep purists on side.

Guardian [praise for the Giordano Bruno thrillers]

With its twisting plot and vivid scene-setting, Treachery confirms Parris’s growing reputation as a writer of historical thrillers."

Sunday Times (London) [praise for the Giordano Bruno thrillers]

A masterful work that deserves a place on all public-library historical-fiction shelves, and that should be recommended to Phillipa Gregory fans.

Booklist (starred) [praise for the Giordano Bruno thrillers]

A masterful work that deserves a place on all public-library historical-fiction shelves, and that should be recommended to Phillipa Gregory fans.

Booklist [praise for the Giordano Bruno thrillers]

2020-09-02
In 16th-century Paris, a defrocked Dominican–turned-spy gets entangled in court intrigue in the process of exposing a complex and deadly plot.

Notorious real-life figure Giordano Bruno, last seen in Treachery(2014), returns to France in 1585, hoping to ingratiate himself with the church and return to the Brotherhood. He playfully surprises his old friend Père Paul LeFèvre in the confessional to plead his case. But shortly afterward, Bruno discovers Paul facedown in the Seine, clinging to life, the victim of an attack. Paul’s dying word to his friend: “Circe.” Bruno’s arrival has clearly been noticed. King Henri, pilloried as an enemy of Catholicism and dubbed “King of Sodom” by his many enemies, brings Bruno to the palace. Blaming the Duke of Guise for the campaign against him, he asks Bruno to find the informants who are helping Guise. One of the likeliest is Frère Joseph de Chartres, who writes pamphlets for the Catholic League excoriating the king. Bruno finds a letter in Peter’s room describing explicit sexual acts. Could it have been planted by an enemy? Parris’ overstuffed plot vividly dramatizes the vibrantly vicious world of the court in rich historical detail: tangled allegiances, back-stabbing, secret romances, and bizarre customs. (Bruno attends a court party where the king is in drag.) Newcomers to the series may be frustrated by the numerous references to events from previous books. A second murder complicates Bruno’s task and raises the need for a solution. The discovery of a dance called The Masque of Circe signals a major break in the case.

Parris’ fifth offers a credible depiction of period France, though sleuthing often takes a back seat to colorful subplots.

Kirkus Reviews