DEATH COMES HOT

A maladroit assassin leaves a trail of destruction in his wake.

Jack Blackjack has had the use of a nice little house and a servant ever since the former cutpurse accidentally secured a job as an assassin for John Blount, who’s working to replace Catholic Queen Mary with her half sister, Princess Elizabeth. Jack is useless as a killer, but his targets have obligingly died in accidents or at others’ hands. When public executioner Hal Westmecott accuses Jack of selling him bad black powder, which he uses to give people being burned at the stake a quicker end, he agrees to forgive Jack if he can find the wife and son who left him. The job thrusts Jack into a cauldron of plots and fake identities guaranteed to get the cowardly assassin into endless trouble. Escaping murder by the brother of a priest who was burned at the stake and by friends of the mysterious woman and son, Jack eventually learns that Hal’s an imposter who has no wife and no son: The child he’s looking for is part of a plot to get rid of Elizabeth. So when he finally finds the boy, he hides him away in the country while trying to solve his own problems. Unfortunately, Blount also wants the boy killed. Jack must hope that it’s better to be lucky than talented when it comes to discharging, or escaping, his repugnant duties.

Plenty of historical detail, loads of twists and turns, and a hilarious tale of criminal ineptitude.