The New York Times Book Review - USA (2020-11-15)

8 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020

FINALLY FINISHEDHilary Man-

tel’s Cromwell opus and think

you might be suffering from

Tudor fatigue? Think again.

Oliver Clements’s rollicking new

historical thriller proves that

when it comes to 16th-century

England, what may look like too

much can never be enough. THE

EYES OF THE QUEEN (Atria/Leopoldo

& Company, 304 pp., $27)revisits

familiar territory — the network

of “intelligencers” with which

Francis Walsingham protected

Elizabeth I from plotters near

and far — and imbues it with

taut, made-for-the-movie-theater

tension and delicious, snickering-

from-the-back-row wit.

Parental guidance will defi-

nitely be necessary, since the

action opens in August 1572 with

the St. Bartholomew’s Day mas-

sacre, when the streets of Paris

turn red with the blood of mur-

dered Protestants and Walsing-

ham himself barely escapes the

mob. Briefly in his possession is

a valuable document, a key ele-

ment in his scheme to deter

Elizabeth’s enemies in Roman

Catholic Spain and France, but

one whose theft will figure in an

increasingly tangled web of

deceit. Reluctantly ensnared in

that web of spies, turncoats and

double agents is the eccentric

astrologer and alchemist John

Dee, Elizabeth’s beloved former

tutor, temporarily banished from

court after running afoul of some

of her advisers.

“I always think of you as my

eyes,” the queen tells him, “able

to see clearly in the night where

others only saw darkness.” Bril-

liant but not exactly an action

hero, this delightfully cranky,

perpetually impecunious scholar

will need to rescue a beautiful

widow from an iron cage at

Mont-St.-Michel and foil a well-

armed assassin on a Thames-side

mission sanctioned by the pope

— all in partnership with Wals-

ingham, whom Dee trusts, as he

pungently puts it, “only so far as

a man might spit a rat.”

In his down time from wran-

gling Dee, Walsingham monitors

the clandestine activities of

Mary, Queen of Scots, who is

proving a formidable adversary.

When she isn’t conspiring to kill

Elizabeth, Mary is deriving equal

pleasure from a rigorous regimen

of erotic stimulation, one aspect

of which causes even poker-faced

Walsingham to blush. At the

novel’s end, Elizabeth remains on

the throne, as we knew she

would. But Mary is still very

much alive, and so are some

dangerous homegrown traitors.

What awaits in the series’ second

volume?

MARTHA GELLHORN ANDErnest

Hemingway are slugging out the

last days of their marriage in

Max Byrd’s PONT NEUF (Permuted

Press/Simon & Schuster, 240 pp.,

paper, $16.99),but their personal

combat is a sideshow to the

encounter that will alter the lives

of three young Americans in the

brutal final winter of World War

II, the fighting in the Ardennes

that came to be known as the

Battle of the Bulge.

Annie March is a fledgling war

correspondent paddling in

Martha’s professional wake, a

convenient acolyte and compan-

ion both in newly liberated Paris

and as close to the front lines as a

reluctant military will allow.

Martha is also responsible for

introducing Annie to B. T. Adams

and John Michael Shaw, best

friends and former college room-

mates who see the war from very

different perspectives — one is a

“desk soldier” analyzing Army

intelligence and interrogating

prisoners, the other a much-

decorated hero commanding

paratroopers on the front lines.

What they both see are Annie’s

considerable charms.

Martha may be an adroit de-

ployer of feminine wiles, but

Annie is an amateur when it

comes to romantic triangles.

Moving deftly between her and

her two suitors, Byrd sets their

to-ing and fro-ing against the

larger maneuvers that will deter-

mine both the outcome of the war

and the resolution of her quanda-

ry. One split-second battlefield

decision can yield salvation or

ruin — or both. And, as Annie

comes to know all too well, emo-

tional wounds may be the most

difficult to heal. 0

Mad Dash to the Past

ALIDA BECKERis a former editor at

the Book Review.

HISTORICAL FICTION/BY ALIDA BECKER

SIMONE MARTIN-NEWBERRY

ONLINE: Look for this column with

an additional book at nytimes.com/

books

The New York Times Explorer. 100 Trips Around the World

Flexicloth with thumb index, 6.7×9.4 inches, 712 pages

“You will be blown

away by so much

beauty. Each trip is richly

illustrated, brimming

with practical details, and

told in the first person.”

—Le Monde, Paris

EXPLORE

THE WORLD IN

712 PAGES

100 stories to bring outthe explorer

in youfrom the travel pages of

The New York Times