The Butcher of Smithfield

The gathering of intelligence has always been of importance to governments through the ages and it was first put on a highly organised footing in England by Lord Walsingham in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. In the seventeenth century Cromwell, seeing Royalist plots in every corner, appointed John Thurloe as his spymaster and he soon gained a reputation for ruthless efficiency. After the Restoration King Charles the Second, a much more generous character than Cromwell, allowed Thurloe to keep the property that he had acquired under the republic and to live in retirement in Lincolns Inn. Susanna Gregory's creation ,Thomas Chaloner, is a former Thurloe agent and The Butcher of Smithfield is his third exploit. As the story opens Chaloner has just returned from Portugal where he has been sorting out a problem for the Queen and he hastens to the White Hall office of his employer the Earl of Clarendon. Instead of the back pay and expenses he expected he faces Clarendon's wrath. The Lord Chancellor is mightily put out that his spy has been away on business for the Queen as if Chaloner could have refused. Clarendon gives him the task of investigating the death of a shady solicitor supposed to have died from eating cucumber and puts a time limit on a successful conclusion failure to meet which will result in his dismissal. The case leads Chaloner through an overlapping series of inquiries which include horse thieves, protection rackets, the rivalry between the producers of the official newsbook and handwritten newsletters and, of course, murder. In addition he has to save a friend from the mercenary wiles of a gold-digging woman. It is expected in this kind of book that the hero should have to overcome all kinds of obstacles and hindrances from foe and friend alike but Chaloner seems particularly ill served. For example, though called upon for assistance by everyone of his acquaintance no one pays him and he is in such reduced circumstances that he goes for days without food depite doing a considerable amount of physical exertion. He continues in this hazardous mode of existance because he is supposed to be unable to obtain any other employment except that of spy which limits his opportunities. However, one would have thought that a man of his proven physical and intellectual capabilities would have been able to find alternative employment both more congenial and rewarding but then, of course, one would be deprived of these very entertaining books.