Book Review – Traitor’s Legacy by S. J. Parris

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About the Book

England, 1598. Queen Elizabeth’s successor remains unnamed. The country teeters on a knife edge.

When a young heiress is found murdered at the theatre, the Queen’s spymaster Robert Cecil calls upon former agent Sophia de Wolfe to investigate.

A cryptic note found on the dead girl’s body connects to Sophia’s previous life as a spy, and her quest soon takes her into dangerous waters. Powerful enemies emerge, among them the Earl of Essex: the Queen’s favourite courtier and a man of ruthless ambition.

This is a murder that reaches directly into the heart of the court. And Sophia is concealing a deep-buried secret of her own. She must uncover the truth before her past threatens to destroy her.

Format: Hardcover (384 pages) Publisher: Hemlock Press
Publication date: 8th May 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime

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My Review

Traitor’s Legacy is the first in a new series featuring Sophia de Wolfe, former agent of Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. We discover pretty quickly that Sophia has had an eventful life including a previous marriage, an illegitimate son given up for adoption and coming under suspicion of murder. In fact, so detailed is her back story I found myself checking that I hadn’t missed an earlier book in the series. That is until I realised she had featured (then going by the name Sophia Underhill) in some of the books in the author’s Giordano Bruno series which I read years ago. However, although new readers might find them wishing for more detail about her colourful past, it does mean you don’t need to have read the Giordano Bruno books to enjoy this one.

Sophia is now a widow with a stepson who resents the fact she has inherited her late husband’s wealth. Her stepson is a drunkard, a gambler and a spendthrift with a potential for violence. Although Sophia’s was a marriage of convenience arranged by Walsingham to ensure her safety, she developed a real affection for her late husband Humphrey, often recalling his wise and supportive advice. Having said that, widowhood has given Sophia a certain freedom. ‘One of the great advantages of being a widow with her own money is that, for the first time in her life, she doesn’t have to submit to any man telling her what she can and can’t do.’

Our first encounter with Sophia is during a duel with her fencing master, so we know from the off she’s someone to be reckoned with. She’s resourceful, intrepid and resolute. ‘Here you are, like some kind of truffle-hound, determined to sniff out the truth and dig it up.’ Sophia has faced many obstacles in her life but has never given up trying to overcome them. ‘She has been raging all her life, for as long as she can remember, at one thing or another (usually the actions of men.’

Following the discovery of the dead girl’s body, Sophia is reunited with Anthony Munday, now a playwright for Richard Burbage’s theatre company, but formerly a pursuivant hunting Catholic priests smuggled into the country. This involved him working for Richard Topcliffe, notorious for his brutal interrogations. Munday now has a wife and children but his attachment to Sophia means that when her connection to the death of the girl becomes very personal he can’t help but get involved. I enjoyed the tease of the relationship between Sophia and Anthony. They’re certainly comrades but could they become something more to each other?

The plot revolves around the question of what was the motive for the murder? Was it an act of jealous rage by a spurned lover? Was it for financial gain given the dead girl was a wealthy heiress? Or was there a political angle to the murder? Answering those questions means taking on the rich and powerful, and Sophia and Anthony both find themselves in risky situations as a result. As she says at one point, ‘I feel with every step we’re tangling ourselves deeper in something that can’t end well’.

The book is set in 1598 towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign when the question of the succession was in a lot of minds and there was turmoil in Ireland where Catholics were suspected of supporting the enemies of England, notably Spain. Alongside the fictional characters, there are real historical figures including the Queen’s favourite, the Earl of Essex, his wife Frances, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, and Thomas Phelippes, Walsingham’s cryptographer who deciphered the coded letters of the Babington Plot conspirators. There’s even a walk-on part for William Shakespeare.

Traitor’s Legacy has everything I look for in a historical mystery: a deliciously complex plot, an engaging main character, a varied supporting cast and lots of period detail. It moves along at pace and, most importantly as far as I’m concerned, the ending is all nicely set up for the next book in the series. If you loved the Giordano Bruno series or you’re a fan of historical mysteries I think you’ll enjoy this as much as I did.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of HarperCollins via NetGalley.

In three words: Compelling, intricate, fast-moving
Try something similar: Viper in the Nest by Georgina Clarke

About the Author

S. J. Parris is the pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt. It was as a student at Cambridge that Stephanie first became fascinated by the rich history of Tudor England and Renaissance Europe. Since then, her interest has grown and led her to create her series of historical thrillers featuring Giordano Bruno.

Stephanie has worked for a variety of newspapers and magazines as well as radio and television. She currently writes for the Observer and the Guardian and lives in Surrey with her son.

Connect with Stephanie
Website | Facebook

#WWWWednesday – 28th May 2025

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Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

What I’m Currently Reading

I’m reading the final two books on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and a book from my NetGalley shelf.

The Mare by Angharad Hampshire (Northodox Press)

Hermine Braunsteiner was the first person to be extradited from the Unites States for Nazi war crimes. She was one of a few thousand women to work as a female concentration camp guard. Prisoners nicknamed her ‘the Mare’ because she kicked people to death. When the camps were liberated, Hermine escaped and fled back to Vienna.

Many years later, she met Russell Ryan, an American man holidaying in Austria. They fell in love, married, and moved to New York, where she lived a quiet life as an adoring suburban housewife, beloved friend and neighbour. No one, not even her husband, knew the truth of her past, until one day a New York Times journalist knocked on their door, blowing their lives apart.

The Mare tells Hermine and Russell’s story for the first time in fiction. It explores how an ordinary woman could descend so quickly into evil, examining the role played by government propaganda, ideology, fear and cognitive dissonance, and asks why her husband chose to stay with her despite discovering what she had done.

The Book of Days by Francesca Kay (Swift Press)

Anno Domini 1546. In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing round her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul.

As the days go by and the chapel takes shape, the outside world starts to intrude. And as the old ways are replaced by the new, the people of the village sense a dangerous freedom.

A Beautiful Way to Die by Eleni Kyriacou (Head of Zeus via NetGalley)

PLAY THEIR GAME
Hollywood, 1953. Young actress Ginny Watkins is turning heads. Even the legendary – and married – actor Max Whitman can’t resist the allure of the hottest new starlet. He promises Ginny the world, in return for the right favour.

DO WHAT THEY SAY
London, 1954. Stella Hope, once the most famous actress in Hollywood, has been ousted to Ealing Studios after her divorce from the powerful Max. Just as she accepts her fate, she receives a letter, blackmailing her for a mistake she made many years ago.

OR THEY’LL BURY YOU
Two women on either side of stardom find themselves in the orbit of the same beguiling man. And one night, in the shadows of a glamorous Oscars afterparty, their lives are changed forever…

What I’ve Just Read

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Fig Tree)

Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: feckless, jobless, in need of a distraction.

Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads. They’re fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food.

And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry.

It’s audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life – love, friendship, art itself – it will reveal the very worst, and the very best, of what humans are capable of. What could possibly go wrong? (Review to follow)

The Night Swimmer by Simon J Houlton

A haunting literary novel of isolation, addiction, and the search for meaning — set against the grey tides of Hastings Old Town.

William “Bill” Eckersley is an unemployed writer, a night swimmer, and a man drowning in alcohol and self-doubt. Trapped in a crumbling seaside town — and within his own mind — he spirals as he searches for creative inspiration and a way out of his own inertia.

His solitary existence begins to unravel, pulling him into an increasingly disorienting world shaped as much by memory and imagination as reality. (Review to follow)

What I’ll Be Reading Next

The Surgeon’s House by Jody Cooksley (Allison & Busby via NetGalley)

London, 1883. The brutal murder of Rose Parmiter seems, at first glance, to be a random and senseless act. Rose was the beloved cook at Evergreen House, a place of refuge for women and children, a place from which they can start their lives afresh.

Proprietor Rebecca Harris is profoundly shocked by the death of her dear friend and alarmed at the mysterious events which begin to unfold shortly afterwards. Could the past be casting a shadow on the present? The malign legacy of the Everley family who called Evergreen home, cannot be ignored.

After two further deaths it becomes clear there is an evil presence infecting their sanctuary, and Rebecca must draw out the poison of the past so the Evergreen residents can finally make peace with the darkness in their lives.