Queen of Ambition (2001)

Fiona Buckley has written an exciting intelligent historical mystery set in 1564, early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is the time before Elizabeth has become "good Queen Bess"; a time filled with uncertainty and unrest over issues of religion and the royal succession. Mary, Queen of Scots and others vie for the right to succeed or replace her on the throne. Elizabeth's council led by Sir William Cecil are frantic for her to marry - marry almost anyone - except her favourite Robert Dudley (later to become the Earl of Leicester). Buckley's plot is skilfully intertwined with those issues.
Elizabeth and her court are about to set off on a royal summer progress to Cambridge. Cecil is worried about a proposed student "entertainment" involving a mock sword fight with Dudley and a faked abduction. He calls upon the services of his secret agents, including Ursula Blanchard, to investigate whether there is something sinister behind the student jape. I have some difficulty with Blanchard serving as a trusted operative for Sir William. Not only is she a woman (in a time when women occupied a circumscribed role in society), but she is married to a French Catholic nobleman. Cecil was adamantly anti-Catholic and anti-French. Once one accepts the unlikely existence of her lead character, Buckley provides a fast-paced, well-written yarn.
Ursula decides to go undercover by working in a pie shop frequented by the students planning the entertainment. The leader of the group dies in a riding accident shortly after she meets him. The Queen's arrival is imminent, pressuring Blanchard and her associates to come up with answers quickly.
Though the solution is intricate and a bit farfetched, Buckley gives the reader a thoroughly enjoyable trip through the society and intrigues of Elizabethan England. I particularly like the way she shows Ursula and her colleagues as rounded human beings, affected and altered by the events of the story. ( )

As with the earlier novels, the characters are engaging and the story flows nicely. However, the plot here seriously threatened my credulity and I just did not find the playlet scenario convincing. A shock in the last few pages, though, in terms of Ursula's family development. ( )