The anatomy of secrets

Elizabethan spies and spymasters mingle with super spooks from our own tumultuous time in Leslie Silbert's cleverly plotted debut thriller The Intelligencer, with excellent dual narration by Jan Maxwell and Alfred Molina. Handed a case that involves Christopher Marlowe, famed Elizabethan playwright and "intelligencer" in the Queen's secret service, Kate Morgan, grad student turned private eye with a CIA spin-off group, is in her element. While Kate investigates, we get a fascinating account of the multifarious machinations that surrounded Marlowe's murder in 1593 and the inside scoop on present day intelligencers.