Treason

Christian Hardy #3

by James Jackson

'Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November...'
Behind the famous rhyme lies a murderous conspiracy that goes far beyond Guy Fawkes and his ill-fated Gunpowder Plot . . .

In a desperate race against time, spy Christian Hardy must uncover a web of deceit that runs from the cock-fighting pits of Shoe Lane, to the tunnels beneath a bear-baiting arena in Southwark, and from the bad lands of Clerkenwell to a brutal firefight in The Globe theatre.

But of the forces ranged against Hardy, all pale beside the renegade Spanish agent codenamed Realm.

Genres: Historical Fiction

386 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 6, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Previous books published under the name of James H. Jackson.

James Jackson has a postgraduate degree in Military Studies and is a consultant in military risk. He is the author of The Counter-Terrorist Handbook and lives in London.

Reviews

[Lena · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've bought this book just because it was on sale and end up reading the most boring historical novel ever: cliché characters, predictable plot full of platitudes.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A new author for me in James Jackson with a book set in a period of religious turmoil in England.

When wasn’t religion mentioned in the same breath as turmoil you say? That’s a very good question!

Although the third in the series about a fellah called “Christian Hardy” I’ve already read about the siege of Malta C1565 & know all about the Spanish Armada C1588 so I plumped for this which is about the Gunpowder plot 1605. I did raise an eyebrow at the staging of the books mind, as if Hardy was at his peak in 1565 as it would seem, then he must be 60 or so in this one but seems ageless…. I mention this as his age isn’t given once throughout the book but he appears to be in his prime as per a young man, bed hopping & beating off numerous foes in sword fights…. Ahhh semantics….. jus overlook the age thing I say……..

There’s a little prelude with some English Privateers (Pirates) coming up against a Spanish treasure fleet C 1591 which introduces us to Christian Hardy, he being we find out, the main man for the proddies whilst on t’other side is a guy called “realm” an Englishman turned agent of Spain whose parents were executed for being catholic when he was young un so his is a tale of pure twisted revenge which has tainted his soul in the name of religion or some such stuff….

That done it’s straight fast forward to 1604 as we run through the main protagonists revolving around the gunpowder plot. I find its very much of the Catholics are evil & traitors to the crown as they collude with the Spanish against the godly & good English protestants in the opening exchanges…. No shades of grey here then, pretty straight forward in that respect?!

The streets of 1604 are dire, pure filth, the period one of hatred for all things catholic & Scots too we find in some quarters of London due to how King James (A Scot) executes his authority & will over his charges. His early reign does not appear to be a popular one after good Queen Bess.

The dialogue is authentic & lively enough, plenty of swash n buckle about Christian Hardy & villainy from his nemesis “Realm”. There is in truth though not much characterisation about all the players, all are very shallow as we decipher from their interactions within each chapter which has a tendency to jump from scene to scene giving us only a flavour of the plot, the detail certainly lacking where that’s concerned. It’s a theme which follows throughout, sometimes a scene is played out & you are a few sentences in before you grasp its relevance, even if indeed it really has one or is it jus included to add more “drama” to the plot….. as the pages turn this becomes more problematic & in the end I found it all a little too melodramatic for my taste. In truth as you get past the half way mark there are jus scenes which in are padding & it all gets very repetitive, like Guido Fawkes is still tunnelling towards the House of Parliament & Christian Hardy is still dodging assassins, said assassins are going after Hardy, the King is concerned & moving about……

Will you learn anything new about the gunpowder plot & those surrounding it… prolly not! Actually I’d say definitely not as any gets lost in the jumble, accept perhaps reinforcing the names of the conspirators. I would add for non-Brits it might be of more interest?

So why did I bail at jus over 50%?

Well, It was a sound enough read at the start as long as yer not really expecting a great deal of complexity & insight into the Gunpowder plot (which I was kinda hoping!). It jus wore me down in the end with it’s endless repetitive scenes going nowhere in particular, each scene having less detail than the prior, it being jus a few lines of dialogue hear & there at times.

As for all books I don’t finish it falls into the 1 star category although I found myself giving this two as it started brightly enough before it fell apart….

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Treason is the third book in the author’s series featuring ‘intelligencer’ Christian Hardy. There are references to key events in previous books which would probably spoil your enjoyment of the first two in the series if you haven’t read them so I’d recommend either reading the series from the beginning or treat this, as I did, as a standalone. (There is a subsequent book, Cradle, an excerpt from which appears at the end of Treason.)

Christian Hardy is a bit of a James Bond figure, probably more Daniel Craig than Sean Connery by now because his first adventure (in Blood Rock) was set in 1565, his second (in Realm) was set in 1588 and Treason opens in 1591 although the main action takes place from 1604 onwards. So it seems time has been kind to him because he’s still a formidable swordsman as well as being a bit of a one for the ladies. He’s ruthless when he needs to be which, as it happens, turns out to be a lot of the time and expert in eliciting information whether that’s at the point of knife or in the bedroom. ‘Everyone had vulnerabilities and diverse motives and Hardy was the master of exploiting both. Either through desire or greed or love or fear, humans were instruments demanding to be played.’

In case this might make Hardy seem a one-dimensional action man, his life has not been without personal tragedy, mainly at the hands of a man known as Realm. He has become Hardy’s arch-enemy, if not nemesis. Realm is an utterly ruthless character who appears to get a kick out of killing. Although there are few really graphic descriptions of his actions there’s enough to give you a sense of his sadistic nature. ‘Wherever he roamed and whatever he touched, devastation seemed to result.’

Blending fiction with historical fact, Treason is a race-against-time adventure with Hardy, under the direction of Robert Cecil, seeking to unmask and frustrate the group of Catholics nobles – and the man we know as Guy Fawkes – in their plan to assassinate James I. Ah yes, Cecil. What book set in Tudor or Stuart times would be complete without one of the Cecil family? In Treason, he’s a sort of ‘M’ to Hardy’s James Bond, directing affairs from Westminster and, like a chess player, always seemingly several moves ahead of everyone else. There are also walk-on parts for other historical personages, including William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, who converse in snappy dialogue, exchanging witticisms and pithy retorts.

As we know from history, the Gunpowder plot failed and those involved met a grisly end but the author manages to introduce enough twists and breathtaking escapes from death into the story to maintain the readers interest and make Treason an accomplished historical thriller.

[Marcus Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a brilliantly researched and well written historic novel. I applaud the writer in bringing to life the period so brilliantly. At times it was like reading a factual history book, with added fiction. I really wish more books were written like this, I enjoyed it immensely.

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 2 out of 5]

James Jackson’s Treason is about the Gunpowder Plot: the plot hatched by a bunch of recusant Catholics in 1605 to blow up Parliament, which, under the influence of the Protestant Scot, King James, was certain to make life even more miserable for English Catholics. How, finding their religion persecuted, their priests driven to hiding in priest-holes and their only hope of salvation—Spain—suddenly reconciled to England and backing away from English Catholics, a group of men, Robin Catesby, Thomas Percy, the Wintours, Guido ‘Guy’ Fawkes and others, came together to make a push for themselves. To do away with James and Parliament, and place on the throne, as puppet, James’s young daughter, Princess Elizabeth.

Into what could have been merely a somewhat fictionalised account of the Gunpowder Plot—how it was concocted, how it played out, how it fizzled out until today most people (at least outside England, like me) know of it only because of Guy Fawkes Day—Jackson introduces a hefty dose of fiction. Ranged against the plotters is Christian Hardy, an intelligencer who reports to Robert Cecil, chief minister, adviser, spymaster and Lord Treasurer to King James. It is Hardy who must unearth the plot, foil it, and come face to face with the mysterious ‘Realm’, an English-Spanish renegade who had murdered Hardy’s wife long ago… and who now poses a threat to not just Hardy but Hardy’s long-estranged son, the eighteen year old Adam, who is part of the Gunpowder Plot.

The good bit here for me was that I knew next to nothing of the Gunpowder Plot. As a result of Treason, I learnt a lot about the plot, as also something of the politics in England around that time.

Then, the story, which when looked back upon once I’d finished the entire book, is pretty impressive. Jackson does a fairly good job of bringing together both parts of the plot—the concoction of it and the foiling of it—in a balanced way.

But there was a lot here that I didn’t like, too. Perhaps the greatest problem for me was the less than adequate character development. Possibly because he switches between so many characters, and because so much is happening, not enough attention is paid to bringing the characters alive. Personally, I couldn’t summon up a liking (or even a strong dislike) for any of the characters here—even the villain, Realm, came across more as an over-the-top and rather caricatured demon than anything else.

The constant switching back and forth between characters and situations also began to pall after a while. I had barely begun to get interested in one character and his/her presence in one situation when the scene changed—pretty much for good. I also began to get confused now and then, because so much was happening. There was the occasional interesting revelation or unexpected twist, but otherwise, it seemed to mostly meld into one blur of action and counter-action. Also, the ‘detective work’ done by Hardy to discover the plot and scotch it was so much in bits and pieces that it tended to fade into insignificance until I wasn’t even paying any attention to that aspect of the plot.

Lastly, the dialogue, which just didn’t work for me. No, it wasn’t as if the English was too archaic (it wasn’t); it was just that two people couldn’t seem to have a conversation without it becoming an exchange of cleverness. One person asks a question, and is replied not with an answer but with a clever retort, which in turn invites another clever retort. After a while, it began to seem artificial and contrived.

Not a terrible book, and I suppose if you’re very interested in English history, you might find that aspect of it interesting. But it didn’t tempt me to read further in the Christian Hardy chronicles.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dark and sinister tale of the Gunpowder Plot and its unravelling.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

c2016 (5) FWFTB: 1616, Southwark, firefight, Realm, tunnels. The underlying violence of the Elizabethan times, something you do not think of whilst swannning around Hampton Court, for example, is captured well by the author. The dastardly Mr Cecil is also portrayed somewhat differently than in other books written about the same period. But you do have to think that you have to be of a certain 'character' to survive in those times. Shakespeare pops up also but more of a cameo than anything else. The plot, of course, runs parallel to the plot that we all think we know. Recommended to the normal crew. '“He had never favoured trawling the shoals of the innocent to uncover the true enemy.”

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have found a new genre that I like; historical thriller. This is a great book about the Gunpowder plot of 1605 and the frankly gruesome aftermath. We follow a spy and Catesby as they try to thwart one another to it's eventual and tragic end. And there's a definite surprise at the end. It made me want, despite it being a historical, a sequel as the characters are so well developed and I will definitely be reading more of James Jackson's work and other historical thrillers.

[Unseen Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of Treason from Allen & Unwin Australia to review.

I did a short review of this book in The Canberra Weekly:
https://unseenlibrary.com/2019/07/04/...

Originally published in January 2017, I have re-published this review on my blog as part of my Throwback Thursday series.

For other exciting reviews and content, check out my blog at:
https://unseenlibrary.com/

[John Bramley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly written, interweaving actual historical characters and a clear mandate to push the boundaries between fact and fiction. Once I started reading I could not put the book down and even though I knew how it all ends, I kind of hoped it wouldn't. About to start the second book in the series.

[Angel Serrano · Rating 3 out of 5]

La historia de la revuelta católica contra el rey escocés King James y el famoso intento de atentado de Guy Fawkes al Parlamento inglés, que se conmemora cada cinco de noviembre con la Noche de las Hogueras: su transfondo y las intrigas palaciegas de la época.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historical fiction set around the Gunpowder Plot. Adventure style narrative as one of Cecil's spies attempts to track the plotters. Enjoyable and very suitable for this time of year.

[Marzouq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book great read

[Pam Doyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book about gunpowder plot. Well researched.

[Charles Bishop · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining read, but sometimes rushed.

[Becci · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful and entertaining read

[Mark Baines · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well crafted story. Taking a piece of a classic and well recognisable incident in British history and crafting a well written intrigue around it, bringing the real proponents and reason behind the Gunpowder Plot to life. The use of what initially seems to be long winded dialogue exchanges soon reveals itself to be a clever mechanism to build atmosphere and remind the reader of their presence at this time in history.
The tale has a well researched beginning, development and satisfactory end, and the book contains an appendix that provide some more background into/explanation of characters. A good basis for a televised drama?
A good read, and excellent portrayal of a very important part of British history.

[Phil Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book although to be honest I don't think it's as good as Pilgrim. I felt that there were parts of the narrative where Jackson was "filling" the book for the sake of it, effectively padding it out.
That said, the story, although well known, has been given some fun twists and turns, but I would have liked to know how Beatrice is rescued.
It's not a book I'll read again but it won't put me off reading another James Jackson story.

[Tom Corbould · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s not hard to see why Frederick Forsyth is addicted to James Jackson’s books (a Forsyth endorsement appears on most, quite possibly all, of them, including this latest one, Treason). As in a Forsyth thriller, the orchestration of plot knots your stomach tighter with every page, luring you into the blind, fetid alleys of Jacobean London – thence, for instance, into the low light of a parlour where “the pinched and haggard faces seemed already to belong to the afterlife”... and, of course, down into the cellar beneath Parliament which “was too much like a tomb for comfort”. Given that we know the outcome of the 5th November (just as in Day of The Jackal we know that de Gaulle evades assassination), it’s the sub-plots – the individual confrontations, one of which, almost unbearably, pits Christian Hardy against his estranged son, Adam – that matter most. It’s here that Jackson demonstrates that he is without equal in the genre, not only because of the adroitness with which he shifts focus – from plotter to agents of the Crown and back again – but because of his delineation of character. The plotters are creatures of flesh and blood, led by Robert Catesby, a man of principle, of decency as well as valour; the Crown forces are compellingly human, too, not least James I himself, his decisions variously governed by cunning, fear and lust (“he scratched at his crotch with absent-minded pleasure”). Above all else, though, there is Jackson’s greatest creation: Realm – traitor and psychotic, a man capable of “almost feeling pity”, for whom barbarity is “simply a means, a habit needing to be fed, a store of screaming faces he glimpsed occasionally from afar”. A contemporary figure, in other words, within the higher command of the IRA or Islamic State. This is why, as Forsyth says, there is no-one today writing fictionalised history like Jackson, who obliges us, as in all the best history, to confront the immutability of man’s inadequacies – his twin capacity for demonic cruelty and true nobility. A masterpiece.

[Tom Corbould · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s not hard to see why Frederick Forsyth is addicted to James Jackson’s books (a Forsyth endorsement appears on most, quite possibly all, of them, including this latest one, Treason). As in a Forsyth thriller, the orchestration of plot knots your stomach tighter with every page, luring you into the blind, fetid alleys of Jacobean London – thence, for instance, into the low light of a parlour where “the pinched and haggard faces seemed already to belong to the afterlife”... and, of course, down into the cellar beneath Parliament which “was too much like a tomb for comfort”. Given that we know the outcome of the 5th November (just as in Day of The Jackal we know that de Gaulle evades assassination), it’s the sub-plots – the individual confrontations, one of which, almost unbearably, pits Christian Hardy against his estranged son, Adam – that matter most. It’s here that Jackson demonstrates that he is without equal in the genre, not only because of the adroitness with which he shifts focus – from plotter to agents of the Crown and back again – but because of his delineation of character. The plotters are creatures of flesh and blood, led by Robert Catesby, a man of principle, of decency as well as valour; the Crown forces are compellingly human, too, not least James I himself, his decisions variously governed by cunning, fear and lust (“he scratched at his crotch with absent-minded pleasure”). Above all else, though, there is Jackson’s greatest creation: Realm – traitor and psychotic, a man capable of “almost feeling pity”, for whom barbarity is “simply a means, a habit needing to be fed, a store of screaming faces he glimpsed occasionally from afar”. A contemporary figure, in other words, within the higher command of the IRA or Islamic State. This is why, as Forsyth says, there is no-one today writing fictionalised history like Jackson, who obliges us, as in all the best history, to confront the immutability of man’s inadequacies – his twin capacity for demonic cruelty and true nobility. A masterpiece.

[Annette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Source: Free copy from Zaffre , Bonnier Pubishing.
Rating: 3 stars for good

Summary:
During the early part of the reign of James I of England, a plot was made against James and his family. Guido Fawkes, an English Catholic, planned a Gunpowder plot. He and several men planned to blow-up the king, his family, and the Protestant rulers. English government spy, Christian Hardy, works to uncover the plot and people involved. A man named Realm, a Spanish agent, is another strong threat.

My Thoughts:
The year is 1604, London.
The name Guido Fawkes is literally pressed from the lips of a prisoner. Fawkes being the name of the plotter against the king. This name is a pseudo name for the plotter.
The spy, Christian Hardy, must find the man behind the Fawkes name, and his accomplices before they achieve their plot.
I love history. I enjoyed reading about this period in English history.
I have never read a book specifically on James I, but aim to in the new year.
The storyline is a plus.
The character Christian Hardy is a plus.
However, I felt the story missed an opportunity to draw me in with suspense. For another reader, they may enjoy this book. For me, it just did not hold my attention as I'd liked.
Christian Hardy is a strong character. He is a character who uses whatever means he can contrive to extract information. I wonder if the book had centered on him, and if his character had been fleshed-out more, and extended with his "interesting"  principles, how the book would fair?
Sir Robert Cecil was chief minister during the early part of the reign of James I. His character is seen more often; whereas, James I seems to be in the background.
I was shown the technique of spying and torture during this period. This element reminded me of a Vincent Price film, macabre.

[Roy Batty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exceptionally written. The dialogue makes you feel like you're actually in the 17th century. Having said this, it did make it too hard going for my liking. I'm sure many will love it, though, so don't let me put you off.
The story runs in nice bite size pieces as it jumps between characters, which is perfect for those like me who read in small intervals.
The deeper you go, the better it gets. Give it a read. I enjoyed it on the whole.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

definitely lived up to its promise

thoroughly enjoyed reading it