A Plague of Angels

In 1592 dashing courtier Sir Robert Carey took up his northern post as Warden of the West March in order to escape the complications of creditors and court life. Trouble however dogs his heels wherever he goes. And where he goes in autumn after the summer's misadventures in Carlisle is back to London upon a summons from his father. Carey is on difficult terms with his powerful sire Henry Lord Hunsdon. Hunsdon son of Anne Boleyn's elder sister Mary-and probably of a young King Henry VIII-swings a lot of weight as ''cousin'' to Queen Elizabeth. But Hunsdon needs his ingenious younger son Carey to sort out the difficulties his elder son has got himself into as an innocent party in a plot to discredit the family. Accompanied by the shrewd Sergeant George Dodd who's like a fish out of water as he copes with the strange Londoners Carey tackles Catholics treachery and such persons known to history and students of literature as George Greene and Christopher Marlowe who are working as spies and double agents. Most arresting is a portrait of a love-sick sniveling hanger-on named Will Shakespeare….