Tamburlaine Must Die

Bath-based, Philip Gooden is the author of Shakespearean historical whodunits featuring Nick Revill, published by ConstableRobinson. He is also the author of The Guinness Guide to Better English and the editor of The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes.

Louise Welsh follows up her Creasey-dagger award-winning The Cutting Room with this short novel set in the Elizabethan era. Like many people, she is drawn to the mystery of the life and death of Christopher Marlowe, the playwright who paved the way for Shakespeare and most famous as the author of Dr Faustus. Marlowe was stabbed in a Deptford pub brawl in May, 1593, apparently after a row over a bill. But the fact that Marlowe's companions/killers occupied a shadowy land between the underworld and the secret service has encouraged a rash of conspiracy theories. As the author says in an afterword it is cheering to consider that a murder can still intrigue and provoke argument after more than four centuries. Marlowe himself - bisexual, blasphemous free thinker, poetic innovator, as well as possible spy - is a gift to the writer, and Welsh slips easily and convincingly inside the head of this charismatic figure in a first-person narrative. Tamburlaine Must Die dramatises the last three days of Marlowe's life. Summoned by the Privy Council, he must track down an individual who calls himself Tamburlaine (after one of Marlowe's own characters) and who is leaving seditious messages posted around London. Tamburlaine swiftly moves from being a bill-sticker to a murderer. Marlowe is told by a necromancer, the famous Dr John Dee, that he alone can identify and deal with Tamburlaine. As well, he is pressured by the Council to inform against Walter Raleigh, another dangerous free thinker. Despite the murky atmosphere of the book, it's not particularly hard to guess at the identity of the murderer, and I suspect that Louise Welsh is more interested in giving us a taste of this highly flavoured time - with its plotters and informers, its failed poets and blind booksellers - than she is in providing a traditional historical whodunnit. Tamburlaine Must Die is a brisk but elegant read which, though leaving us tantalisingly on the eve of Marlowe's own murder, underlines the skulduggery of this fascinating period.