from the cover:

"The whole world of Elizabethan England is brilliantly recreated in Anthony Burgess's new novel, a joyous celebration of the life of Christopher Marlowe, murdered in highly suspicious circumstances in a tavern brawl in Deptford three hundred years ago.

Writing with all the verve and energy at his considerable command, Burgess presents a kaleidoscope portrait of the most vivid age in British history, at the center of which is the story of one man - a towering genius in the theater, but riven by conflicts both sexual and political. How Kit Marlowe is seduced into the devious world of Elizabethan espionage through his relationship with a ruthless spy-master is one theme, involving power-politics, religion and the devastating consequences of failure; his rapscallion drinking and roistering another, his passion for the theater, for poetry, for the language he was in the very process of forming a third.

With a cast which includes Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Kyd, the Earl of Essex, Shakespeare and all the heroes of Elizabethan theater, with the sights, smells and spectacle of sixteenth-century London as a backdrop, this is a novel of immense power and readability, a triumphant completion of Anthony Burgess's rich career."

Entertaining, a bit heavy on the "Hey look! He's gay!" theme. While that is an important facet of Christopher Marlowe's character it just felt that Burgess was playing it up more than necessary. His Marlowe is a gay character, not a character who happens to be gay. The story moved along well, though. I'm a fan of Marlowe's poetry and I enjoyed this imagining of what he might have been.

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