Gooden, Philip – ALMS FOR OBLIVION

[LJ Roberts]

ALMS FOR OBLIVION (Amateur Sleuth-London-1600s) – G+ Gooden,
Philip – 4^th in series
Constable, 2003- Hardcover

Nick Reville is a player in Burbage and Shakespeare's Chamberlain's Company. A friend from his home village, Peter Agate, comes to London and informs Nick that he, too, wants to be a player. Although Nick isn't happy about the competition, he is less happy when he finds his friend murdered and he is arrested as the killer.

With each book in this series, Gooden focuses on one of Shakespeare's plays, this one being "Troilus and Cressida." But it's the writing that keeps me a fan of this series. Nick is an interesting central character with Shakespeare in an almost cameo role. The language is well done, not old English but not modern either, and it adds to the tone of the book. There are wonderfully terrible puns, good suspense and, under it all, a good mystery.