title: An Honorable Murderer: A Shakespearean Murder-Mystery Featuring Nick Revill
author:  Philip Gooden 
description: British author Gooden's sixth historical to feature actor and sometime sleuth Nick Revill (after 2004's <i>Mask of Night</i>) takes the reader for an enjoyable, fast-paced romp through the world of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. In 1604, Nick's troupe is helping to celebrate an impending peace treaty between England and Spain by performing a short play that includes such illustrious figures as Queen Anne and a courtier, Sir Philip Blake, among the cast. Portraying Truth, Blake is supposed to descend from the heavens at the drama's climax, but his drop proves more rapid than planned during a final rehearsal, resulting in his gory death. Investigating the apparent accident becomes Nick's responsibility through the forceful request of a shadowy figure who's been tailing him and who even intervened to save him from further injury during a street assault. As the less than satisfying Agatha Christielike resolution suggests, Gooden ranks below such masters of the historical mystery as Steven Saylor and Bruce Alexander, but Shakespeare fans will be intrigued by Gooden's intriguing use of themes from both <i>Othello</i> and <i>Hamlet</i>. <i>(Apr. 1)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  **P HILIP GOODEN** is the author of _Sleep of Death_ , _Death of Kings_ and
  _The Pale Companion_ , the first three novels in
  
  
  the Nick Revill series, each of which takes a Shakespeare play as a central
  theme for the story. A contributor to various short story anthologies, he also
  works as an editor, most recently on
  
  
  _The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes_. He lives in Bath.
  
  
  
  
  
  **Praise for The Nick Revill series**
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Welcome to Elizabethan England where . . . Gooden will give you a gratifying
  taste of the danger and excitement of that lusty place and time.’
  
  
  
  
  
  _Publishers Weekly_
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘Philip Gooden brilliantly immerses us in the half-lit world of late
  Elizabethan London, an atmosphere where, as in the stage-play world, things
  are not as they seem . .
  
  
  . Gooden’s grasp of the rhythms and diction of the period is accomplished.’
  
  
  
  
  
  _Catholic Herald_
  
  
  
  
  
  ‘As usual, Gooden devises a fiendishly intricate mystery in well-realized
  historical and literary