It's 1676 and Master Mercurius of Leiden University in the Netherlands has once again been called in to see the Stadhouder, William of Orange. It's been two years since he solved a murder at William's request but now William has asked him to go England with a diplomatic mission whose purpose is to arrange a marriage between William and King Charles II's fifteen year old niece Princess Mary. As Mercurius is an ordained Dutch Reformist minister (as well as a secretly ordained Catholic priest but he won't be mentioning that in protestant England), his role will be to question Mary about her faith and make sure she is a good protestant.

When a member of the mission is murdered in London, King Charles hears of Mercurius' reputation in solving murders and asks him to investigate. This is not an easy thing for someone who speaks little English and doesn't know the intrigues of the court, but Mercurius is a resourceful fellow good at following clues and using his logical thoughts to put two and two together and he soon has a few ideas about what is going on.

As well as presenting a difficult murder to solve, this is an interesting historical series setting the scene well for the time period. As an outsider, Mercurius is able to comment on the more liberal habits of the English court, including women offering themselves freely to him and even openly declaring themselves to be one of the King's bastards. Mercurius is a man of intellgence and wit who takes all this in his stride and it is indeed a pleasure to spend time in his company.

4.5★
“‘You! Stay!’ His Majesty commanded. I did as I was bid. Technically I was not his subject, but he had armed guards outside and a broad view of his prerogative powers. It is hard to conduct an argument about your rights successfully when your head is on the end of a pike.”

This is King Charles II of England, a monarch not to be trifled with (although he fooled around a lot himself). Master Mercurius is the nervous Dutch minister who hopes to avoid torture of any kind. In fact, he was hoping to avoid doing any more “little jobs” for William of Orange, the Stadhouder (the head of state) of the Dutch Republic, since he always ends up in harm’s way.

He’s a simple religious academic, a teacher, a Protestant minister (oh, and by the way, he’s a ‘secret’ Catholic priest, but we’re not tell anybody). Still, it’s handy to have that up his sleeve in these fraught times, as he’s never sure which side is in favour in any particular company.

It’s his Protestant expertise that’s being called for, to ascertain whether 15-year-old Mary, the King’s niece is truly Protestant, as her father (James, the Duke of York, younger brother of the King) converted to Catholicism. James would like his girls to marry French royalty and become Catholic.

“A lot of James’ problems would have vanished if a friendly Pope had excommunicated him. They never do, of course; great men can do all kinds of things and the Pope just writes them a note excusing their behaviour. Consider the Duke of Orleans; most men who dressed in women’s clothes and showed an unnatural interest in guardsmen would be on a gibbet in no time, but the Pope simply shrugged it off as high-spirited horseplay. “

The King, as head of the Church of England, is adamant that they remain Protestant as they will be in line for the throne. And what the King says, goes. At least in the 1600s it did. And there had already been plenty of religious blood spilled between various alliances of European countries against each other in turn.

Interestingly, nobody is ever concerned about the already strong family ties between William and Mary. Yes, ‘that’ William and Mary, for that’s who they became years later. They are first cousins.

‘The family tree of royal families is never straightforward, but it was true that when Mary married William her aunt would also become her mother-in-law. Except that she was dead; but you know what I mean.”

So what does our shy academic have to do with it? Back to William of Orange. He’s mid-20s and looking for a wife. She must be royal and Protestant. His other options are mostly either spoken for or toddlers (or both!), and the same is pretty true for Mary. Sounds like a match made in – well – royal heaven, I guess. And it’s really none of our Master M’s business. His heart isn’t in it.

“I was turning all this over in my head when it was stamped upon by a simple consideration. Mercurius, I told myself, this is not your world. You are a university lecturer. You do not understand all this. What are you doing even thinking about it? A few seconds served to dredge up the names of people of humble origins who had involved themselves in politics, and just a couple of moments more to recognise the key unifying factor between them. They were all dead, and some of them were not nicely dead, if I may put it that way.”

But he agrees to learning a bare smattering of English, joins the party to sail for England, and ends up facing spies, intrigue, rivalry, and women (!) who throw themselves at him. And then there’s a murder! His investigative fame is known to the Dutch group, and he’s assigned to find out who, what, etc.

His English is obviously dreadful, but he speaks French and Latin, as do the educated English of the day, so he manages. The real historical characters are always well-drawn by Brack, real and never dull caricatures, and the fictional ones are worked seamlessly into the plot. I can’t tell the difference without a program and am just content to go with the flow.

We are reading Mercurius's story as he relates it in his old age to his scribe. It’s a kind of memoir. Occasionally, he drops a sly aside into square brackets, reminding us that these are memories, and he did survive his adventures.

He mentioned at one point that a small number of women had “excited feelings in me that were, perhaps, more tender than I should have liked”, which was tricky, because he knows he’s a Catholic priest but the women and his friends know him as a Protestant minister who should be married with a family.

“[My clerk, Van der Meer, sniggered when I dictated that bit about “a small number of women”. I shall remember that when I share out my worldly goods at my end. He’ll be lucky to get my second best Bible.]

The only slow part for me, and that’s only slow by comparison, because these are pacey novels, was Master Mercurius’s explanation to the King of how he found the culprit. But I had to laugh when the King saved me.

“Charles interrupted. ‘Master Mercurius, have you a deal more to say? For if you have, for God’s sake go away and write a book about it.’

‘Not much more, Your Majesty.’”

Here’s that book!

Thanks to Sapere Books and NetGalley for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted. I hope to see more of the good Master soon!

Master Mercurius Returns in Dishonour and Obey which is the third book in the series by Graham Brack

This time Mercuris has to go to England to ensure that a forthcoming royal wedding takes place but is soon involved in a murder enquiry.

The book is well written and the story very readable resulting in an enjoyable few hours of reading. Recommended

It gives me great pleasure to read about Master Mercurius adventures. In Dihonour and Obey he travels to England on one of his toughest assaignments yet. Graham Brack tells these stories so well with both mystery, murder and humour. I have to thank #Netgalley and #SapereBooks for letting me have a few hours of enjoyment in another era. I will not call the author old but he really can describe the setting very well. You feel that he has put some effort into the research. If you have missed this series get on board book four is soon upon us.

This is the 3rd in the Master Mercurius series.

Graham Brack has a grand way to let historical Dutch men relive.

Graham Brack is a great author and because of his Master Mercurius is a colorful character with a grand imagination.
Whom discover little by little, the murderer of one of their group.
This group has traveled to England, to arrange a marriage with William of Orange and Princess Mary of England.

This is a great telling of a story within history, I've never visited Londen, when you read this book, you've got the feeling that you walk side by side with Master Mercurius, in the castle of King Charles and trough the busy streets of London.

I hope Mr. Brack will write more books in this series.

Thank you Sapere Books and Netgalley, for this ARC

“If only it were true that the wicked of the world did not prosper! I know that this is corrected in the life to come, but it would be good if God occasionally smote someone for being miserly. Having conceived the wish, I decided not to stand too close to Vlisser in case God answered my prayer with a thunderbolt and his aim was off.”

Dishonour and Obey is the third book in the Master Mercurius Mysteries series by British author, Graham Brack. Now an octogenarian cleric, Master Mercurius dictates to his clerk a third episode that occurred during his days as a young lecturer in moral philosophy and ethics at the University of Leiden.

It is 1676, and two years since he was enlisted by Stadhouder, William III of Orange to look into a treasonous plot against him. Now enjoying a quiet life of study, writing and some teaching, Mercurius is quite dismayed to learn that the Stadhouder has not forgotten him, but indeed has a new assignment for him, in London.

Under the pretext of checking that William’s English cousin, Mary is a sound Protestant and therefore suitable for marriage, Mercurius is to take advantage of his free passage as a clergyman, to note any who might sabotage these plans and bring them to the notice of Ambassador Extraordinary, Van Langenburg.

For this, Mercurius has to take a crash course in English although he observes that: “There are people who will tell you that if you just speak Dutch slowly and loudly, the intelligent Englishman will understand you. That may be true, but we cannot rely on always having an intelligent Englishman to hand, and I understood not a word they said in their barbaric language.”

And when in London, he notes that: “they are so certain that everyone in the world speaks English that even if you obviously don’t, they will behave as if you do and just talk a little louder to you.” Luckily, with Princess Mary he can converse in Latin.

Mercurius notes the Court’s abundance of food and drink and is impressed with the city’s rebuild after the Great Fire, and Christopher Wren, the man building St Paul’s Cathedral. But their welcome is marred when one of their party is falsely accused of theft by a market stallholder during their City tour.

Then, while enjoying an evening of English hospitality, the Dutch embassy party notices that one of their number is missing. A search finds him, face down in an alley with a dagger in his back. Now with some investigations to his credit, Mercurius inspects the scene and deduces that all is not as it might appear.

It seems that the victim was on a covert mission for the Stadhouder, and Mercurius wonders if it was this, or the negotiations for the marriage that got him killed. Working with the English Lord Chamberlain, Lord Arlington, he learns that there are an almost dizzying number of opponents to this politically motivated union, and their motives equally various.

If Mercurius is often clever and quick-thinking, he sometimes makes incorrect deductions which delay his ultimate discovery of the who and why. Along the way, he has his first taste of tea, and concludes that “London was full of places to get drunk” but “English beer is horrible. And expensive” so he is pleased to return home. His blush is well-exercised when he is, several times, offered “comfort” from young women of the court, including “one of the King’s Acknowledged Bastards”.

After surviving abduction, he eventually gets to reveal all he has learned in the King’s audience chamber to a large gathering, although Charles II does show a bit of impatience: “‘Master Mercurius, have you a deal more to say? For if you have, for God’s sake go away and write a book about it”.

The King is pleased enough with the result and Mercurius goes home with gold and an offer of one of his “unwanted mistresses”, after almost, despite his being a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church (and a secretly ordained Catholic priest), being made Bishop of Norwich. He will still have to somehow avoid being appointed the Royal Chaplain in The Hague.

Back home, the Stadhouder, too, rewards Mercurius with a purse, and shows appreciation by solving an inconvenient problem inflicted on him by the new Rector.

Brack always manages to include plenty of interesting historical detail, and he gives Mercurius a wonderful turn of phrase, as in: “I was pleased to see Arlington look me up and down with a new respect — or, at least, a different kind of supercilious contempt” and “Arlington turned a funny colour, as if he had swallowed a grape and discovered it to be a sheep dropping”.

This is another intriguing and entertaining dose of seventeenth Century crime fiction, and fans will be pleased to learn that Master Mercurius reappears in a fourth installment, The Noose’s Shadow.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Sapere Books (but I also purchased a copy!)

The third book in the Master Mercurius series by Graham Brack.

The setting of the book moves from Leiden to London to the court of King Charles. A marriage is to be made between Stadhouder Wiliiam of Orange and a English Princess, but where Master Mercurius goes murder and mystery follow. Being in a unknown city in a foreign country has it challenges, but this book gives even more insight into the mind of Master Mercurius. He knows he isn’t perfect, he has his flaws, but that is what makes him an easy to like and interesting character.

This book kept me on the edge on my seat and the last line of the book made me laugh out loud.

Graham Brack's Master Mercurius mystery series is one of a handful of series that I simply cannot get enough of. If I could clone Brack and set all the different versions of him up in lovely writing spaces to produce as many Master Mercurius novels as possible in the shortest imaginable amount of time, I would. Sadly (at least from my perspective, perhaps not from Brack's) I cannot do this. Instead, having finished this third of three Master Mercurius mysteries, I can just anxiously wait now to see if any more will appear.

Mercurius is a lecturer in moral philosophy working at the university in Leiden in the 17th Century. He is smart, witty, honest, and one truly hilarious guy. In Dishonour and Obey, Mercurius once again unwillingly finds himself on a mission with seriously worrisome international implications, this time in England. As in the earlier novel, the mystery is solid and the novel built around that mystery a delight. Lovers of historical mysteries, start reading now!

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley. The opinions are my own.