I seem to be having a bit of a Tudor moment, what with CJ Sampson's Matthew Shardlake and all. I started Innocent Traitor comparing it unfavourably with Sampson's work. But I found it in due course a real page-turner. The truly horrifying history of Jane Grey, the nine-days Queen is told through the eyes of many of the people involved in her life. Their individual voices are hard to distinguish one from the other, but their different views of aspects of the same tale make for interesting reading. There's Jane herself, quiet, studious but strong-minded, her loyal loving nurse, her dreadfully inhumane mother and the political entourage surrounding her. The characters are believable, and the story is a true one.
Alison Weir, an historian, has clearly enjoyed the opportunity, new to her, of fictionalising her account, putting words and thoughts into her characters' mouths and heads that can have no basis in hard historical fact. But she is so conversant with the period and the characters about whom she writes that the feel of the book is likely to be an accurate refection of this particularly unsavoury episode in English history. A very good if uncomfortable read.
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