Book- Death of the Fox

A book about the reign of Elizabeth I and her trusted ally Sir Walter Raleigh, Death of the Fox was a book that I thought I would like more, but I did not enjoy it nearly as much as I wanted to.

Historical fiction in one of the genres that is the equivalent of baked pasta for me...it is the comfort food of books. And I love the Elizabethan era. But George Garrett tells the story of the rise, fortunes and final downfall of Raleigh in a disjointed, oblique way, and I must admit, it did not grab hold of me until almost the end of the over 700 page book.

Now Garrett is doing more than just telling Raleigh's story, he is trying to show how England was in that time, and how much it advanced during the reign of Elizabeth I. In doing so he uses many different narrative voices, and this is where he lost me. Because some of these voices are first person, but seem to belong to disembodied beings, I had no idea where the narrative was emanating from, or why that voice took over the narrative.

While he does succeed in illustrating England, he would have grabbed me more by sticking to the story of Raleigh, because that story in and of itself is fascinating. How he rose to be the most trusted advisor to the queen, but after her death he was not at all trusted by her successor, James (of course James hardly trusted anyone). I would have liked to see more of the relationship of Elizabeth and Raleigh, instead of getting too few and too only hinted at views, of their relationship.

While I was looking forward to that baked pasta, it seems like it was subbed for with tofu. And while good for you, I really wanted it to be comfort food. Death of the Fox did not do that.