title: A Brood of Vipers: Being the Fourth Journal of Sir Roger Shallot Concerning Certain Wicked Conspiracies and Horrible Murders Perpetrated in the Reign of King Henry VIII
author:  Michael Clynes 
description: Sir Roger Shallot's "fourth journal" (the third was The Grail Murders) reveals a veritable Titus Andronicus of savagery: duels; beatings; suicide; plots within plots; and murders?lots of them. But it's hardly tragedy, as Shallot, Knight of the Garter, four-time widower, cheater at dice and earthy-tongued libertine (who claims to have sired a son by the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I), tells it all with garrulous, sometimes scatological, gusto. He recalls the spring of 1523, when he, then a mere servant, traveled with his beloved master, Benjamin Daunbey (nephew of Cardinal Wolsey and agent of Henry VIII), to Italy to investigate the London murder of a Florentine envoy. Staying at the villa of the powerful Abrizzi family, they see plenty of action while drinking in the lively but treacherous Florentine milieu of Machiavelli and the Medicis. The mystery, which has to do with the scheming that led to Henry's break from Rome, is merely workmanlike. It doesn't really matter a bit. The pleasures of this series are not to be found in plotting but in Shallot's Falstaffian narrative flair. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: > A Brood of Vipers
  
  Series:
  
  
  Sir Roger Shallot [4]  
  Published:
  
  
  2010  
  Tags:
  
  
  Historical Novel  
  Historical Novelttt
  
  
  * * *  
    
  In 1523, Benjamin Daunbey and Roger Shallot are summoned to London. A
  Florentine envoy has been murdered and King Henry is determined to unmask the
  perpetrators. To discover the identity of the assassin they must travel to
  Florence - it sounds simple but the reality is murderously different
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Michael Clynes was born in Middlesbrough and educated at Woodcote Hall. He
  studied History at Liverpool and Oxford Universities and obtained a doctorate
  at Oxford for his thesis on Edward II and Queen Isabella. He is now Headmaster
  of a school in North-East London. He has written crime novels under other
  pseudonyms.
  
  Acclaim for Sir Roger Shallot's journals
  
  'Lively historical whodunnit ... Shallot himself is a splendid braggart, a
  Tudor Flashman' The Times
  
  'A rich stew of conspiracy, horror, sexual treachery and dry humour' The
  Tablet
  
  "Set in a fascinat