Epstein is a talent to watch, and A Tip for the Hangman is not to be missed!' -Alyssa Palombo, author of The Borgia Confessions 'Allison Epstein's stunning debut creates its own genre: hard-boiled Elizabethan noir. This masterfully researched, beautifully written novel takes the reader inside the spy networks, taverns, theatres, and halls of power of Tudor England, with the irreverent Christopher Marlowe as our guide.

'Debut author Allison Epstein delivers an absolute tour de force in A Tip for the Hangman. At the center of the action is Kit himself-an irrepressible, irreverent force of nature. Pairing modern language with period detail, Allison Epstein brings Elizabeth's lavish court, Marlowe's colorful theater troupe, and the squalor of sixteenth-century London to vivid, teeming life. But when Kit finds himself reluctantly drawn back into the world of espionage and treason, he realizes everything he's worked so hard to attain-including the trust of the man he loves-could vanish in an instant. Spying on Queen Mary turns out to be more than Kit bargained for, but his salary allows him to mount his first play, and over the following years he becomes the toast of London's raucous theater scene. In Kit Marlowe's last year at Cambridge, he is approached by Queen Elizabeth's spymaster offering an unorthodox career opportunity: going undercover to intercept a Catholic plot to put Mary, Queen of Scots on Elizabeth's throne.

An Elizabethan espionage thriller in which playwright Christopher Marlowe spies on Mary, Queen of Scots while navigating the perils of politics, theater, romance-and murder.

Ellen kushner's swordspoint