Murder Most Foul

"Another debut novel, although he’s not a new writer. Guy Jenkin is a screenwriter who has worked on various TV shows people will be familiar with. This book is set in a period of history that has been very well worked. It’s about the murder of Christopher Marlowe. William Shakespeare is one of his main characters, and with Marlowe’s sister, they become a sort of detective duo, because they are not convinced by the official explanation for why Marlowe was stabbed in the eye in Deptford. There’s an on-off romance between them as well. What’s entertaining about this one is that he doesn’t attempt in any way to make it sound historical, although he’s clearly done the background research. Unlike Rosanna Pike’s book, it’s all written in very contemporary dialogue, and they are presented as characters that we might recognise, that you might run into in the pub. So there’s something in the jolt between these characters, very familiar as historical figures, and turns of phrase that make them sound recognisable to us. The comedy is found in that—how these people become heroes in a comic detective fiction . Again, there are lots of episodic scenes you can picture unfolding on screen. He has a very vivid way of depicting that world while making it feel familiar to us. He has, from screenwriting experience, a knack for comic timing, reincorporation, and all these little tricks of how to make a scene funny."