Twelve nights to safe your own life…

Synopsis

The Theatre

London, 1592

When a player is murdered, suspicion falls on the wardrobe mistress, Magdalen Bisset, because everyone knows poison is a woman’s weapon. The scandal-pamphlets vilify her. The coroner is convinced of her guilt.

Magdalen is innocent, although few are willing to help her prove it. Her much-loved grandmother is too old and sick. Will Shakespeare is benignly detached, and her friend Christopher Marlowe is wholly unreliable. Only one man offers his assistance, but dare she trust him when nothing about him rings true?

With just two weeks until the inquest, Magdalen ignores anonymous threats to ‘leave it be’, and delves into the dangerous underworld of a city seething with religious and racial tension. As time runs out, she must risk everything in her search for the true killer – for all other roads lead to the gallows.

My review

Magdalen Bisset is working as a wardrobe in the Theatre in the times William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe are making their names on the scene. And Magdalen is lucky to know both men.
However, in times of need, you learn who your real friends are. Magdalen learns that sometimes the easiest answer isn’t always the truth, especially when murder is involved.
Because a player being murdered, poisoned, at the theatre, quick assumptions make that Magdalen is the prime suspect. After all, poison is used by women as a weapon.
Magdalen now only has a two weeks to find the real killer and proof her innocence. But with not many standing by her side, and a city struggling with many tensions, it’s easier said than done. However, anything is better than being sent to the gallows…

It’s never easy to proof that you didn’t do something, and imagine being forced doing that in the 16th century, where DNA, fingerprints, or even following someone through social media, or GPS on your phone are totally bollocks.
Add a city filled with religious and racial tension, prejudice towards women, and you know it would even be more an herculean task…

The time and place is something I can only imagine about, like every one of us. However, because of this book realization dawned that I had a romanticized view of it.
Obviously, feminism has grown a lot, but seeing how just a few centuries ago, women were prejudiced, accused without any inkling of real proof, made me think how happy and lucky we are to be in 2022…

In one way is was fascinating to see how Magdalen is fighting for het independence and freedom, and her friendships which such famous characters.
But also seeing how quickly she finds herself standing alone, with all her supposed friends to have their own reasons to never truly speak out, show again that sometimes being innocent isn’t always just enough.

But Magdalen has their fierceness in her that I admired. Even if against all odds, she never gives up or backs down. She is determined to proof her innocence and find the real murder.
And even threats won’t stop her own investigation, making her even more adamant!

I didn’t know how it was in 15th century London, peaking with their theatres, but also facing many struggles. And this book showed me that behind every beautiful poem or play, real life often was a struggle.

Even if I am not knowing British history as detailed as I thought, I found myself eager to discover together with Magdalen the truth. And learning how lives can be entwined in several (un)expected ways and how far people will go to keep a secret…