
Member Reviews

The Players by Minette Walters. When will I learn that I don’t care about the English civil war. Monmouth’s army is doing something and something else happens and this is all my bad because I know I don’t care about this. I love Minette when she’s telling me about the plague and I love everything else she does but just not this.

The Players by Minette Walters
It’s a while since I’ve read Minette Walters, having been a fan of her crime fiction in the past. This is a historical fiction novel set decades after the end of the English Civil War around 1685. The country could easily become divided again when a pretender to the throne arrives in Dorset. Lord Monmouth is Charles II illegitimate son, he’s Protestant and all set to incite a rebellion against the Catholic James II. Armed only with pitchforks, Monmouth's army is quickly defeated by King James II's superior forces and charged with high treason. Those found guilty will be hanged, drawn and quartered. However, when he’s unsuccessful, James orders every rebel must be hung, drawn and quartered. In Dorset, Lady Jane Harrier and her son come together to save the men from the gallows. This is a compelling and powerful story of guile, deceit and compassion during the dark days of The Bloody Assizes. Secrets are kept and surprising friendships formed in a dangerous gamble to thwart a brutal king's thirst for vengeance...
I’m a huge fan of Daphne Du Maurier’s historical fiction, specifically The King’s General because it has a heroine with a disability (a rare thing when this was written) and she’s even the love interest. This novel felt very similar, both in period and tone. This is Minette Walters’s follow up to The Harrier and the Swift and I’m now determined to read that one too. The author does fill us in on the events of the previous novel and the history between the two which really gives the reader a good historical grounding. This insurrection, led by Monmouth, is the last rebellion just before the crown was passed over to James’s daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. I thought that the rebellion against James was solely a Protestant uprising against a Catholic king, but there was more complexity than that. Although city and court dwellers are living one way, the rural areas seem largely forgotten by the palace and many are starving. Lord Monmouth felt like an opportunist, targeting people who felt hard done by and forgotten and raising them into an army by making unrealistic promises. However he didn’t arm them properly and had minimal financial backing. They were beaten very easily at Sedgemoor. I became lost in this story. It was so well-researched and every character was well written and fully fleshed out.
I thought Judge Jeffries was a great villainous character. He assumes everyone’s guilt and the hangman is so overrun they have to commute many men’s sentences and transport them for hard labour abroad instead. Jayne is a fascinating character and so is her son Elias, the Duke of Grenville. Elias has become the head of their family after the death of his father, so he works with his mother in place of his father. He has clearly picked up on their skills and is brilliant at disguising himself and a very competent spy in his own right. It was great to have a disabled character in Althea Etterick, who helps the Duke of Grenville and his mother to smuggle some of the accused out of the country. Althea is brilliant because she uses people’s impressions of her for her own ends, using their prejudice against them. She’s very intelligent and ingenious but is often overlooked because people see the disability and assume she’d be incapable of such subterfuge. She was quite capable of standing up to Elias too and I think she was the real stand out character of the story. There’s also a hint of romance, although it wasn’t developed as much as it could have been. I think the author created a great atmosphere, of an England under a man who has no mercy for those who would usurp his throne. Ordinary people didn’t have much choice if they were forced by their lord or landowner to go to war, but then are punished as if they chose to fight. I could see why it was seen as unjust and tyrannical. It felt like a dangerous time, with a man who’s uneasy on the throne and a harsh life for the rural poor. People were so desperate for food that neighbours might inform on neighbours for a few pennies to feed their family. Elias is very lucky that his many comings and goings aren’t noticed.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story and it opened up this period of history for me as I’d never understood how we ended up with William of Orange as King. Having an Irish Catholic family had always kept me focused on his treatment of the Irish people. I hadn’t realised that James II was only King because Charles II had no legitimate heir, so his brother had to take the throne. I loved that this was clearly meticulously researched but didn’t get bogged down in detail. It focused on the central characters and very much depended on their cleverness and determination to save as many rebels as they could. It has a great atmosphere and unfolds slowly so the reader can really appreciate how clever Althea, Elias and Jayne are. I also enjoyed the medical history woven into the story, something that’s always fascinating to me. I thoroughly enjoyed going back in time with these characters and now have the prequel on my wishlist.

DNF at about 20%. I found this book really difficult to get into. I didn’t know who I supposed to be following and I know it’s about spies and what have you but I could pin any characters down. There was no description or real voice to follow. There was pages of discussion about how to get a supposedly dead body out of a ditch, who then turned out to be alive and also not an old tramp but an ill fed Duke. I was too confused and not interested enough.

Its more than 30 years since England fought her bloody civil war, conspiracy is the spectre that still casts is shadow over the country. The late Kings bastard son James, Duke of Monmouth has taken to Europe, the black cloud consumes there too...
April 1685, The Hague, we stand with the watcher in the shadows, as he surveys the Dukes house. See but remain unseen, that is his aim. He gains access to the Duke's house once all his 'guests' have gone. The watcher advises his old friend against rebellion. Will he take heed for he is Protestant, while his uncle the King Catholic, which is not to England's taste ?
He did not.....the rebellion brought to the shores of England would have far reaching consequences.
Unputdownable ! Brilliant sequal to The Swift and The Harrier. Exciting historical thriller with everything you want from that genre. So good to revisit familiar characters, grieve for old friends lost, and meet new exciting ones. Minette has always been an auto buy for me.
Suse

A sort of sequel, although many years on, to the author's The Swift and the Harrier. The tale is set at the time of the Monmouth rebellion and focuses on west country England and the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys in Dorchester.
The central characters are Jane Swift, now widowed from William, her son Elias, who has inherited the cunning of his parents, and Althea, a most intelligent young woman, who despite disability, captures Elias' heart. Oh, yes, and Judge Jeffreys too, the 'hanging judge'.
This is a superb historical romance. It doesn't flinch at the atrocities of the times, but has humane heart. Elias and Althea allied with Jane work to subvert the worst of King James' determination on revenge for the Monmouth rebellion. Jeffreys is his instrument, but the judge is carefully drawn, and the contradictions of his skill as a lawyer and his feelings as a human provide a lovely balance to his portrayal, as well as making him vulnerable to the actions of Elias and Jane.
I enjoyed this immensely, more so than its predecessor, although it was very good too. It's a very clever book, well written, with attractive and fascinating characters, as well as an excellent plot.

Four and a half stars.
England, 1685, the scars and division between Catholics and Protestants still run deep after the Civil War, neighbour informing on neighbour, spies everywhere. Charles II had done much to bring stability to England but after his death without legitimate heir his younger brother James (James II) ascended the throne.
When Charles II's illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth launches an ill-advised Protestant rebellion in the West Country, it is quickly quashed and Monmouth escapes the battlefield only to be captured shortly afterwards. In the following days and weeks thousands of 'rebels' are arrested across Devon, Dorset and Somerset. Where Charles had adopted an attitude of let bygones be bygones, James was still smarting over his father's (Charles I) execution and consequently decided to charge all rebels with high treason, for which the sentence was hanging, drawing and quartering. His agent? Judge Jeffries, who later became notorious as Hanging Judge Jeffries as a result of his adherence to James II's desire for revenge.
So far that's historical fact, what Minette Water does is to weave a fascinating and engrossing human tale around these historical facts featuring lady Jayne Harrier (who I now gather - thank you Google - is a character from another book by Minette Walters) and her enigmatic son. Her light touch is wonderful, no turgid historical politics, just a clever man, and two clever women who try to save as many 'rebels' as possible.
I absolutely loved this, I don't want to go into more detail about the story because so much of it depends on the cleverness unfolding gradually. This was a bit of a blank spot in history for me so it was wonderful to have it brought to life so vividly and so clearly, so often family relationships are so complex I get totally lost (don't get me started on the sheer number of Elizabeths and Henrys during the Wars of the Roses) but this was wonderfully clear and I loved the way that all the characters had light and shade. My only gripe was that I could have read a book twice as long!
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Spectacular sweeping history with deliciously clever leads
Minette Walters does it again, with a historical novel that also stirs in romance, thriller and mystery, and starring two delicious protagonists: the debonair but humble Elias Harrier, also Lord Granville; and the reclusive Aleatha Ettrick, daughter of the local magistrate whose mind is sharp enough to prick Elias's ,mysterious plans. Is Elias on the side of the King or his enemies? And will Aleatha keep her silence on Elias's plans, or lay them bare to the authorities?
Set during the very events of the Bloody Assizes, Walters makes the history fresh while giving her characters—almost all invented apart from Lord Jeffreys, the Hanging Judge—sparky, lively and spike dialogue and actions. Elias is a proto-James Bond, special envoy of kings and queens, and Aleatha a genius at logic and deduction, better than Sherlock Holmes. Pitting these two against each other and against the shifting sands of politics and religion makes the book rattle along, covering geography and history in a pleasingly lengthy but gloriously entertaining tale, full of derring-do, precision heists and cat and mouse chases, both intellectual and physical. literally unputdownable.

The Players is an interesting work of historical fiction. Centred around the era of Charles II and the attempted rebellion incited by the King's illegitimate son. Rather than focussing on the 'battle' The Players focuses primarily on the aftermath of the events and how the locals are affected by their proximity to insurrection. Beautifully weaving the narrative around the 'Bloody Assizes' and the process of law, Walters illuminates a period of deceit and consequences, The presence of two strong female characters is intriguing and captures the imagination offering a new perspective on what is primarily a masculine focus.
Walters combines the bloodthirsty desire for revenge with a touching tale of romance and awakening which blossoms into an ultimately joyful read.

After the accession of James II the country is concerned that he will wish to convert them to Catholicism. The illegitimate son of Charles II, the Duke of Monmouth, tries to invade but his rebel army is swiftly defeated and James wants revenge. To this end he sends a brutal judge, Lord Jeffreys, to the West Country to try the rebels. Spy and envoy, The Duke of Granville, only wants peace in his corner of Dorset so aided by his formidable mother and a new friend he endeavours to find a way through the tangle.
From being an outstanding writer of thrillers, Walters has progressed to being an outstanding writer of historical novels. Skipping forward a few hundred years, but staying in her beloved West Country, this tale looks at the Bloody Assizes and introduces a couple of strong female characters. It seems all swashbuckling on the surface but there are some really big issues considered within it which makes it all the more interesting.

Having been impressed with The Swift and the Harrier when it was published in 2021, I was excited to discover that the much anticipated sequel was to be published in 2025.
As the novel begins in 1685 we have now moved considerably on from the English Civil War and whilst King Charles II's reign brought a period of stability to the country, his brother, and successor, King James II is a very different monarch. When the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate eldest son of Charles II incites insurrection examples must be made of those supporters who took part in the ill-fated rebellion and it is there where we meet again with Lady Jayne Harrier who lives in Dorset with her son Elias, Duke of Glanville. We learn something of what has gone on in the previous years with Jane but largely the book focuses on the events following the Monmouth rebellion and the Bloody Assizes which took place in the aftermath when James II was hellbent on revenge.
The story brings a true sense of the injustice which was meted out to Monmouth supporters whether they be guilty, or innocent, and whilst Lady Jayne and her son do what they can to ameliorate the damage, history still carries the scars laid down by Judge Jeffreys and his harsh punishments. The characterisation is, as always, excellent with a whole host of fully rounded fictional figures who sit very comfortably alongside those from history. The timeline is recreated with a fine eye for even the smallest detail and the way in which time comes to life is testament to the author's skill at bringing history alive.

I really enjoyed this, as I enjoy historical fiction based on real life events and people and this was a period of British history I knew nothing about. From the very beginning I was drawn into the story and found the characters very engaging, so much so .. I went off to find out how many of them were real life characters.
It is a romping good read, with an excellent sense of time and place.. and I learnt lots too. What a treat ...

The Players by Minette Walters
This book follows on from The Swift and the Harrier. It can be read as a standalone but I would thoroughly recommend The Swift and the Harrier as it is an excellent book. This book features the son of Lady Jayne Harrier Elias, Lord Granville. It focuses on the reign of James the brother of Charles II and on the role of Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes. Although I had heard of the judge I knew little of the period and found the historical detail fascinating. The characterisation of Elias and Althea, who suffers from palsy but has a brilliant mind, is excellent and I enjoyed spending time in their company.
I was horrified by the violence of the period and the way in which so many were sacrificed due to the King wanting to send a powerful message to future rebels. The men who supported Monmouth in his bid to wrest the throne from King James were cruelly treated and suffered the most terrible death. This is a well-researched novel with powerful characters and made a period of history, of which I had little prior knowledge, easier to follow.
It was good to see that Jayne Harrier was still the strong minded, independent woman of the previous novel despite her advancing years. An excellent sequel and a book I will be recommending at my various book groups. A must for lovers of historical fiction.
Many thanks to the author, the publishers and to Net Galley for the opportunity to read the book in return for an honest review.

This was my first Minette Walters reading experience. And although this was a sequel, I managed to keep up and felt this worked as a standalone, as the author brought the reader up to speed.
The period Walters has chosen is really fascinating. I’ve recently started enjoying more books set around the English Civil War and the aftermath, and it’s not a period I know much about. Walter’s exploration of the Monmouth Rebellion and some of the figures associated with it make for eye-opening reading.
At the end of the novel, Walters writes, “My special thanks to the ordinary men and women of 17th century England who endured a brutal Civil War, a failed republic, a rebellion and a revolution to make their voices heard. When we take democracy for granted, we forget how many lives were sacrificed to win it for us.” Walters has paid homage to these men and women and to the history of democracy by sharing the events of 1685 through a layered and thoughtful story.
This was a slower read, but this is not a negative. A lot of the plot is driven by politics and subterfuge, and quite a lot of dialogue. But this does work as it spins out against the context and setting, and it feels like Walters have captured a snapshot of English history.
Her cast of characters were varied. Althea is a strong, witty leading female who emphasises attitudes towards women and the less abled in society. Elias is a rich, charming and very likeable character who shows a good side to wealth - reminding me of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Lady Harrier is iconic, and gives me Eleanor of Acquitaine vibes with no sign of slowing down. And lastly, perhaps the most interesting character is Judge Jeffries. Seen as a cruel, ruthless villain, Walters pitches the debate that he’s doing what tools to do by the highest authority, but he is a talented man stricken with illness. His development and relationship with some of the other characters is a complex but fascinating analysis of attitude and morals.
Overall, a complex but thoroughly fascinating and well-written snapshot of a key event of English history.

Minette Walters has a real gift for historical fiction, always making the period feel very alive and the characters believable in their actions. The period around the English Civil war which is covered by this book and its predecessor is not one I'm hugely familiar with but the story sets up the context very well and there was never a problem following the history. Jayne, the main character of the first book, returns in this one with her now grown son and a host of new and interesting faces around her, with the female characters again being particularly strong and interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it can be read alone but I would definitely encourage anyone interested to read the previous book, the Swift and the Harrier, first to really set the scene.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

I love all these books by Minette Walters, the way you learn history while reading a gripping novel. The details of life in that period have clearly been painstakingly researched; including food, clothes, travel (with all the discomforts), and social etiquette. The book gets off to quite a slow start as the scene is set, but then the pace picks up and is thoroughly fascinating. The terror and fear felt is tangible. I definitely recommend this book..

A gripping, well plotted and well researched historical novel. I learned something new as I never read anything about this specific historical time frame.
Compelling, excellent storytelling, a fascinating and well researched historical background
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I haven't read Minette Walters for ages, and I am so glad I have now rediscovered her. I thoroughly enjoyed this engaging, well researched and well written story and thought it was both deft and intelligent. I will absolutely seek out the earlier books in the series. Many thanks!

Oh dear, what a disappointment this turned out to be. I hadn’t read Minette Walters for years, not since The Scold's Bridle and Fox Evil. They were excellent: taught, tense thrillers/ whodunnits with real pace and verve. After something of a hiatus, Walters, now 75, has turned her hand to historical thrillers. This latest one is set in the 1680s in the dying days of King James II’s reign, taking in the Monmouth rebellion, the Bloody assizes of Judge Jeffreys, and the peaceful transition to William and Mary. A fascinating, dramatic few years of British history that does not often feature in historical fiction. It should be a gift to a skilled and experienced novelist but Walters manages to turn this literary gold into something dull and dreary.
The main characters are excellent, (with some caveats): Lord Granville and his mother are scarcely believable as liberal aristos, whose driving concern is always for the little people, ensuring they get justice, no matter what the risk to them personally. It’s as ludicrous as the portrayal of above stairs folk in Downton Abbey who just love the plebs downstairs. It’s so well done however,and the two are such appealing characters, that disbelief is willingly suspended, and the reader finds themselves willing them on to succeed. The character of Lady Althea is also beautifully drawn as Walters explores 17th century attitudes to disability. The love interest is really well done, with Althea’s shyness and reluctance to believe in Granville gradually overcome. It’s a bit of a cop out however, as Walters shies away from any scenes where love is declared and we are left a little cheated as we are simply presented with the aftermath in the epilogue.
The main problem here is that Walters seems to be obsessed with her research into the period, hence the number of reviews that home in on that. “Immaculately researched” is always a bad sign in my opinion. It shows that research has become an end itself, rather than serving the story. There are interminable scenes where she goes through the mechanics of the legal system, transportation, local and regional, explaining in great detail how those people awaiting trial for sedition could be sprung from captivity. Perhaps Walters is too big a figure to be edited, but this is exhibit A for assertive intervention. Without it, we’re left with a novel that’s at least a hundred pages too long. Shame - the characters, plot and historical scenario promised much but deserved a lot more. Maybe next time.

What a marvellous book "The Players" was, I'm really pleased that the author has continued writing as she is such an experienced writer.
Minette Walters is England's best-selling female crime writer. She has won the CWA John Creasey Award for best first crime novel, the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best crime novel published in America and two CWA Gold Daggers for Fiction. Now she is concentrating on historical crime fiction which shows how adaptable she is.
The detailed research and plotting of this book are fascinating-and give a very vivid picture of life at this time. I was transported every time I picked up this highly imaginative story to the seventeenth century. There were a few loose ends at the conclusion which I believe should be tackled in further books in this series.
Most strongly recommended this was one of the best historical mysteries that I have read this year.
(ARC supplied by the publisher via netgalley.co.uk in exchange for a fair review)

My storygraph review:
This novel is set in 1685 and is set against the backdrop of what is known as the Bloody Assizes. These were a series of trials that started in Winchester and went through the west country and into Devon. More than a thousand people were put on trial for their suspected involvement in a rebellion against James II in the name of the Duke of Monmouth, who was the illegitimate son of Charles II, and thus James II’s nephew. Some of the players in this story include Lady Jayne Harrier, her son, the Duke of Granville, The daughter of a local magistrate Althea, and the judge himself. This novel is set in the backdrop of a rebellion, and all the characters are rebellious in their own way which I loved.
Its everything I love about historical fiction; the characters were dynamic, I felt like i learned a lot about the events depicted, the plot kept me hooked, and Minette Walters set the reader in late 17th century Dorset with skill. I find myself longing to revisit these character's lives.
I did not realise that Lady Jayne Harrier is the star of the book The Swift and the Harrier, which I definitely am going to read now.
Thank you to NetGalley and Allen & Unwin for the advanced copy!