Description
March, 1587. Christopher Marlowe s play Tamburlaine, with the incomparable Ned Alleyn in the title role, has opened at the Rose Theatre, and a new era on the London stage is born. Yet the play is almost shut down on its opening night. For a member of the audience, Eleanor Merchant, lies dead, hit by a musket ball fired from the stage. The man with his finger on the trigger? A bit-part player named Will Shakespeare. Convinced of Shakespeare s innocence, Marlowe determines to find out what really happened. When a second body is found floating in the River Thames, it becomes clear that Eleanor Merchant s death was no accident, and that something deeper and darker is afoot. And why is the Queen s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, taking a close personal interest in the case?"
