Crimson Rose cover art

Crimson Rose

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Crimson Rose

By: M. J. Trow
Narrated by: Peter Wickham
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

March, 1587. Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine has opened at the Rose Theatre. But the play is almost shut down on its opening night. For a member of the audience, Eleanor Merchant, lies dead, hit by a musket ball fired from the stage. The man with his finger on the trigger? A bit-part player named Will Shakespeare.

Convinced of Shakespeare’s innocence, Marlowe determines to find out what really happened. When a second body is found floating in the River Thames, it becomes clear that Eleanor Merchant’s death was no accident and that something deeper and darker is afoot. And why is the Queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, taking a close personal interest in the case?

©2013 M. J. Trow and Maryanne Coleman (P)2018 Soundings Historical Mystery Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Traitor's Storm cover art
The Blue and the Grey cover art
The Alchemist of Souls cover art
Winter's Reach cover art
The Censor's Hand cover art
The Sixth Victim cover art
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation cover art
Rook cover art
Virgins cover art
The Diamond of Drury Lane cover art
The Tudor Mystery Trials Box Set cover art
The Devil and His Boy cover art
The Merchant's Mark cover art
The Ashes of London cover art
Fly by Night cover art
Rogues cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
This seems to have more in common with a Carry On film, than a historical novel. That isn't made clear in the synopsis and I find it rather frustrating. I wasn't looking in the Historical Crime section for a comedy, so this is going back half finished.

Carry On Round The Codpiece?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
London, 1587. A new play entitled Tamburlaine opens at the Rose Theatre, but when a member of the audience is murdered, young actor Will Shakespeare is the prime suspect and is thrown into jail. Playwright and part-time spy, Kit Marlowe, knows his friend is innocent and sets out to investigate. But when another body turns up, it seems the mystery is not a simple one.

This is the first time I’ve delved into MJ Trow’s massive oeuvre, which includes several book series (Lestrade, Maxwell, Marlowe etc). In this adventure, he spins an absorbing tale of murder, spies and money-lending. Having said that, while he paints a generally authentic picture of the times, the people and the minutiae of everyday life, his use of more modern language and modern expressions did occasionally jar with me.

For lovers of truly historic murder mysteries, it’s a clever and witty story that adds yet more layers to the legend that was Christopher Marlowe.

A clever and witty story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The old assumption that Christopher Marlowe was an intelligence agent is played neatly against as here he tries to carry on as a serious playwright.
The surrounding cast really provide the colour and fun. The hapless Shakespeare is fun but Burbage’s many attempts to get on stage were also good fun.

Clever mystery with sly humour

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.