"Death in Delft" by Graham Brack

It’s Holland, 1671. Master Mercurious is a professor at the University of Leiden. As a professor, he’s also an ordained Protestant minister. Unknown to anyone but himself, he’s also a consecrated Catholic priest. It’s an unusual combination, but this is 17^th century Europe and 17^th century Holland, and the wars of religion are still fresh in people’s minds. Holland is officially Protestant, which is why Mercurious keeps his Catholic position a secret. 

His university rector gives him an assignment – to travel to Delft to assist the mayor in solving a terrible crime. Three young girls have disappeared, and the body of one has turned up. The girls have barley even a passing acquaintance with each other. One comes from the upper class, one from the middle class, and one from the lower class. The girl found dead is the poor one. 

 

Master Mercurious feels a bit out of his depth. He’s never investigated a crime before, and he knowns no one in Delft. He soon makes two friends who help him in his investigation – the ascientist and creator of the single-lens microscope Antonie von Leeuwenhoek and the painter Johannes Vermeer. The three follow all kinds of leads and end up in a number of blind alleys, until they stumble upon what the three girls had in common.

 

Graham Brack

Death in Delft by Graham Brack is the first of four novels in the Master Mercurious series, and it’s full of twists and turns. It’s chock full of historical detail about Delft and the period; the author has done some impressive research.

 

Brack originally trained and practiced as a pharmacist. In addition to the Master Mercurious series, he’s also written seven novels in the Investigator Josef Slonsky series, set in Prague. Brack blogs regularly at his author page; you can read his posts here.

 

Death in Delft is a fast-paced story, with a number of possible suspects and a number of possible motives. Brack does an excellent job of hooking the reader and keeping him guessing as to what’s behind the girls’ disappearances.

A Wild Century: “Rebellion” by Peter Ackroyd

The 1600s were a tumultuous century in British history. The Tudor dynasty came to an end with the death of Elizabeth I, and the Stuarts ascended the throne. Disagreements between king and Parliament increased, with the eventual explosion of civil war in the 1640s and the Cromwell protectorate in the 1650s. Then came the Restoration, with Charles II crowned king. Upon his death, his brother James II became king, but his Catholicism and imperial ways were too much. William and Mary, James II’s son-in-law and daughter, ascended the throne in the relatively bloodless Glorious Revolution of 1688.

This is the political history of the century told in detail by writer Peter Ackroyd in Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution. It is the third volume in his history of England, following Foundation and Tudors.

Rebellion is firmly in the tradition of popular history writing in the U.K., and Ackroyd is one of its most prolific writers. The book is a lively, exciting story, and it draws upon a lively, exciting period. Ackroyd writes history with all of its warts, and none of the romanticizing that many popular writers might be prone to.

The most detailed and extensive section is the era that was the most pivotal – roughly 1640 to 1660, covering the fight between Charles I and the royalists on one side and the Independents and Presbyterians of Parliament on the other. The detailed discussion provides a solid summary of both causes and effects, and emphasizes that the it wasn’t a simple “crown versus Parliament” fight. Loyalties could be fluid, and both sides were guilty of extreme positions and acts. It was a time of extremes.

The 17^th century was also a time when some of the greatest literature and theological statements in English history was created. Shakespeare wrote some of his most famous plays. A royal commission of scholars translated and created the King James Version of the Bible. Thomas Hobbes wrote his  Leviathan. Milton wrote his incredible poetry (and spent a time in prison for siding with Cromwell and Parliament). John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. Theologians spent five years (meeting at Hampton Court Palace) creating the Westminster Confession.

Peter Ackroyd

While the focus is political history (and particularly the political history of England), Rebellion also provides context of what was happening in the daily lives of the people. We learn about crop failures; the growth, contraction, and growth of trade; the return of the plague; and the first of London in 1666 (both King Charles II and his brother worked to fight the fire, which burned for three September days).

But it’s the political history where Ackroyd excels and tells his best stories. We learn of the workings and the corruption of the royal courts, the intrigues with various European powers and how that played out in domestic politics, and the inner workings o parliament and how it came to assume power and fight for power.

It’s a rich, exciting story, and Ackroyd tells it extremely well.

Related:

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation.

My review of Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors.

Reading Peter Ackroyd.

A Revolt over a Prayer Book.

Painting: Charles I by a follower of Anthony van Dyck (1636).