Review: A Masterpiece of Corruption by L. C. Tyler

Title: A Masterpiece of Corruption
Author: L. C Tyler
Publisher: Constable
Release Date: 14th January 2016
Synopsis:It is December 1657. John Grey has returned to the study of law in London. He receives a mysterious invitation which seems to have come from some of his mother's royalist friends - possibly members of the largely ineffectual secret organisation, the Sealed Knot. He is amused rather than otherwise that they would think him stupid enough to join them and thinks it may be entertaining to tell them so to their faces. On arriving at Sir Richard Willys's chambers at Gray's Inn, however, he finds that the invitation was never intended for him - to his horror, Grey is warmly greeted as a royalist conspirator sent over from Brussels to murder Oliver Cromwell. It soon becomes clear that the man he has been mistaken for is his own father, a long-time royalist exile. The question is how he can prevent the murder without betraying his father ... 

Review:

This was a new and fresh voice in historical fiction for me. I do love to dip back into a historical fic now and then and this was the period I loved ( well just after, but the two flow simultaneously in my mind for it to be one and the same) and because there's so much of it out there it's always interesting to see a different take on such a known period of time with such known characters.

John Grey was an interesting character to read because of what was referred to as his 'Honesty'. In as such you walked in his footsteps, got information with him and were spun webs of lies around with him. Court at this period must have been a terrible time to live with all these secret groups and double crossings! But this made his character different, it was an honest read, and I feel like this is not the norm in historical fiction (though again we do have some of the traditional staples with John being a lawyer :p). The characters were well written and everything you'd expect them to be and this is potentially where the fault of the book lies for me. Everything was as it should be and so there was not a great amount of build up, or tension, John sort of trundled along throughout playing the game and the game played him.  I'm not exactly sure what I was hoping for but it was something more than this. I do think however that i do want to try the first book in the series, and I'll look out for others to come.