Heresy by S.J. Parris

Parris is a pen name. How do I know? Because they reveal her real name at the back of the book. This leads me to ask, why bother with a pen name if the writer's real name is to be revealed in the same volume? OK gripe over. Stephanie Merritt a.k.a. S.J. Parris has written a real cracker of a detective story set in Elizabethan England. Her sleuth is Giordano Bruno renegade monk, philosopher and astronomer who has been brought to England by Sir Phillip Sydney. Sydney, nephew of Queen Elizabeth's favourite the Earl of Leicester, is an adventurer, intellectual and man-about-town but also an agent of spymaster Walsingham. Arriving in Oxford to debate his astronomical theories Bruno finds himself involved with murder and a secret Catholic group lead by a charismatic Jesuit. Bruno risks life and limb to unearth the secrets of the group and solve the murders, so much for philosophers as ivory-tower wallahs. Having established this team of Bruno and Sydney so effectively surely Parris must have more intrigues for them to become involved in. Soon I hope.