It's May 1560, and a very young and carefree Elizabeth I is conductiong a rather dangerous flirtation with the very married Lord Robert Dudley, much to the dismay of her friends and advisers. But Elizabeth refuses to pay any heed to those who warn her that this infatuation of hers could cause her her crown. Elizabeth's thoughts are firmly focused on Dudley, love, dancing, masques and summer; and she has no time for matters of state, much to the anger and chagrin of William Cecil, her chief adviser. She even shrugs off the feeling that she is being spied upon rather than allow her unease to interfere with her pleasures! And when her favourite lutenist falls to his death, instead of demanding that the accident be fully investigated, Elizabeth accepts that his death was an accidental one -- so loathe is she to fill her mind with anything but pleasurable thoughts of Robert Dudley!
Her loyal servants of the Privy Plot Council however do not accept that the musician's death was accidental, and covertly, they begin to investigate his death. But when an ambitious young courtier is seriously injured during a rehearsal for a masque, thus almost causing the Queen to fall to her death, Elizabeth finally realises that someone is out to get her. Will Elizabeth and her servants succeed in unmasking the culprit before he/she can strike again?
Karen Harper has done a marvelous job of sustaining the atmosphere of tension in this novel: will Elizabeth's risky infatuation with Dudley lead to a scandal that could rock the country and her hold on the throne? Who is the secret watcher that seems to be dogging the Queen's very footsteps? And will Elizabeth come to her senses in time to realise that someone is out for her blood, or will more 'accidents' take place? While most of the character is this novel are a bit paper-thin, Harper's portrayal of Elizabeth I is brilliant -- she has successfully captured the many facets of the Queen's personality: capricious, quick tempered, generous, intelligent, suspicious, and vulnerable. Karen Harper also does a wonderful job of portraying the murderer by showing how a life of thwarted dreams and ambitions can affect an uncertain and deranged mind. And even though I imagine that this may not have been the authour's intention, I came away feeling rather sorry for the murderer.
"The Twylight Tower" is quite a good novel of political intrigue, and reminded me quite a bit of the novels (of a similar genre) by Jean Plaidly. Indeed, Karen Harper even manages to shed an interesting light to the death of Amy Robsart, Robert Dudley's unfortunate and much neglected wife. A good and interesting read.
In THE TWYLIGHT TOWER, Karen Harper presents Elizabeth with an additional problem--murder. While at first the deaths appear accidental, they soon resolve to a major threat to Elizabeth herself. Elizabeth's privy council wait for her orders to swing into action (this is the third of Harper's Elizabeth mysteries after all so they know how to sidekick), but Elizabeth is too busy being enamored of Lord Robert to have much time for crime solving.
That, in a nutshell is the problem with the book. The protagonist of a mystery is too busy to solve the mystery until the very end. Like most mystery readers, I prefer to see the protagonist struggle, seeking resolution in a number of ways. Waiting through two hundred pages for the protagonist to get around to it isn't what I want.
I enjoyed THE TWYLIGHT TOWER and I think the concept of Elizabeth as detective is delightful. As a mystery, I found it merely average, however.