Alchemy (Crime/Historical Fiction) - S. J. Parris *****

By Brian Clegg

Two writers shine when it comes to Tudorbethan murder mysteries: C. J. Sansom for his Shardlake books and S. J. Parris (Stephanie Merritt) for her novels with the unlikely figure of Giordano Bruno as detective. For popular science writers, the historical Bruno is a bit of a problem, as he is often portrayed as a martyr for science, but in reality was a mystic whose ideas were unoriginal and whose execution was for common-or-garden heresy, rather than being ahead of his time on cosmology. But as a detective he makes a great character in the loveable rogue with a conscience tradition. Think a sixteenth century version of Lovejoy (the books, not the TV series), but with less of tendency to kill people. Parris makes great use of this in her series of novels.

This latest, Alchemy, is set in Prague in 1588. The setting, with its contrasts of the Emperor’s palace and the conditions of the poor is handled excellently. There’s a particular opportunity here to explore some of the oddities of the period – and its biases – both in the bizarre work of the alchemists who feature in a big way, the power of the Catholic Church, and the treatment of the Jewish ghetto, which also play a major part. 

As is often the case in Parris’s books, Bruno is a reluctant detective, with a whole range of factions vying against him and providing potential suspects – including a form Catholic inquisitor and his Spanish thugs and the various hangers on hoping for the benefaction of the Holy Roman Emperor, who is generally a weak individual but is challenging the church.

What’s great about both Parris and Sansom’s books is that they give us all the enjoyment of the immersing in the period you get from a quality historical fiction novel, but at the same time provide us with some fun in trying to work out what’s happening with the murder mystery – in this case one that is blamed by some on a golem, neatly tying in with the legend attached to the historical character Rabbi Loew. The one disadvantage Parris has in comparison with Sansom, whose detective is fictional, is that we do know Bruno’s eventual fate (just as we did with Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall books), and there’s always a slight frisson of ‘will this be the last book?’ I had to restrain myself from looking up when Bruno was executed (though Parris has confirmed he will have at least a couple more outings).

The only criticism I have is the book is perhaps a little over long – but I had a great time reading it. Parris gives us an engaging and complex mystery to unravel in a dramatically different world from modern Europe.

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.