There's trouble and then there's Jack!

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A Murder too Soon: A Tudor mystery (Jack Blackjack Mysteries #2) (Bloody Mary #2) by Michael Jecks

Ah Jack, Jack! Always a hair's breadth from serious trouble and yet like a cat with nine lives you land on your feet--sort of.
Jack Blackjack, the consummate con artist has his master John Blount fooled into thinking he's an assassin. So when Blount actually sends him off to kill Lady Margery Throcklehampton, one of Lady Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting, Jack's not happy. (Elizabeth is under what amounts to house arrest by her sister, Queen Mary). Although on the bright side this takes him out of London and away from Thomas Falkes, whom he owes money to and who is not happy. As Jack muses, Falkes "wanted to personally skin [him] alive–and he was not a slave to metaphor." 
But when Jack finds himself caught in the middle of a struggle for the Tudor throne, Woodstock was no place Jack wanted to be. When he trips over the dead body of the lady he's sent to murder, things take a grim and complicated turn. Jack becomes a suspect for a murder he didn't commit, that his master now thinks he actually did, fulfilling his assassin's role, thereby keeping himself on Blount's payroll, and yet this was a "murder to soon." (Very clever title by the way). Jack continues to play a role in this latest charade, earning himself the acknowledgment of the Lady Elizabeth, but eventually at what cost?
Jack is a character of many facets, fool comes to mind most often but then there's, cut purse, gambler, ladies man, intuitive thinker and a survivalist. One day his luck might just run out!
An engaging read with a rapscallion, likeable character as the centrepiece. I love the understated self-deprecating humour of Jack. He's definitely a charmer! 
Michael Jecks' insights into the Tudor period with the various swirling forces parrying for leadership and change, or just protecting the status quo is fascinating.

A NetGalley ARC

*****

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