Browsing the Bookshelves

A Conspiracy of Violence by Susan Gregory

Set in a Restoration London, bursting with vibrancy and licentiousness after a decade of puritanical abstinence during the Commonwealth, Susanna Gregory’s A Conspiracy of Violence, is an atmospheric and tightly interwoven tangle of murder, mystery, political intrigue and buried treasure. Thomas Chaloner has returned to London in search of employment in his chosen profession – as a spy. But as the former employee of Cromwell’s spymaster-general and the nephew of a regicide, he struggles to secure a position. Driven by the nagging of his Dutch lover, he is forced to accept a mission which is unattractive and dangerous and he soon finds himself hunting for gold in the Tower of London. But everywhere he turns he finds signs of plots to kill a king and, struggling to make sense of coded information, he no longer knows who to trust.

Gregory’s novel evokes an engaging and warm, if one-sided, vision of Restoration London and many of her characters are exploitations of the slim facts known about real people. Between the historical facts, she has cleverly woven a complex, compelling and utterly believable fabric of betrayal and treason. The plot is intriguing and, despite what some reviews have said, it is not heavily weighted down with a history lesson, but rather by a vast array of critical characters. Each is nicely drawn and some has characteristics, like Kelying’s love of animals and Evett’s passionate hatred of wild beasts, which Gregory exploits mercilessly to extract the humour, but there are so many it is difficult to keep track of them all or of who has said what to whom. As a result the plot unfolds only slowly and at times one has to flick back a few pages to check who’s who.

There is a historical note at the back of book which is helpful in tracking which parts of the book are fictional and which are based on fact. For those who are interested in such things, I’d suggest turning to it first. My favourite part of book was the inclusion of the bookselling Leybourn brothers – a lovely touch since the Leybourns were responsible for producing the maps of Restoration London from which, surely, Gregory must have drawn much of her landscape of London.

An enjoyable, and finely written mystery, that would have been better slimmed down to the bear bones.