The Intelligencer

Leslie Silbert

Feb 2004 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

On May 30, 1593, London's most popular playwright was stabbed to death. The royal coroner ruled that Christopher Marlowe was killed in self-defense, but historians have long suspected otherwise, given his role as an "intelligencer" in the queen's secret service.
In sixteenth-century London, Marlowe embarks on his final intelligence assignment, hoping to find his missing muse, as well as the culprits behind a high-stakes smuggling scheme.
In present-day New York, grad student turned private eye Kate Morgan is called in on an urgent matter. One of her firm's top clients, a London-based financier, has chanced upon a mysterious manuscript that had been buried for centuries -- one that someone, somewhere is desperate to steal. What secret lurks in those yellowed, ciphered pages? And how, so many years later, could it drive someone to kill?
As Kate sets off for England, she receives a second assignment. An enigmatic art dealer has made an eleven-million-dollar purchase from an Iranian intelligence officer. Is it a black-market antiquities deal, or something far more sinister? Like Marlowe, Kate moonlights as a spy -- her P.I. firm doubles as an off-the-books U.S. intelligence unit -- and she is soon caught like a pawn in a deadly international game. As The Intelligencer's interlocking narratives race toward a stunning collision, and Kate closes in on the truth behind Marlowe's sudden death, it becomes clear that she may have sealed a similar fate for herself.
Propelling us from the shadows of the sixteenth-century underworld to the glitter of Queen Elizabeth's court, from the dark corridors of a clandestine American op-center to the cliffs of Capri, The Intelligencer is at once a murder mystery, a tale of poetic inspiration, and a richly detailed foray into parallel worlds of espionage and political intrigue separated by centuries.

Ratings and reviews

ISBN 0743432932 - Touted on the cover as "The International Bestseller" and "A Thriller", The Intelligencer strives to be all that the Da Vinci Code could be - and was. Unfortunately, that was much more than this book could be, leaving me with the feeling that I just read a wanna-be. Kate Morgan works for a deep-undercover organization. As a front, The Slade Group functions as a fairly straightforward firm of private investigators. Behind the scenes, the group - run by a former CIA man - does those things and goes those places where the CIA fears to tread. Kate became involved after the death of her fiance, through her senator father's friendship with Jeremy Slade. Deciding to dedicate her life to doing something that matters doesn't detract from her first interest, English Renaissance studies, particularly Christopher (Kit) Marlowe. When Cidro Medina brings a case involving the attempted theft of an old manuscript to The Slade Group, Kate is the obvious choice to work with him. The bad guy is working under the name the Jade Dragon and the manuscript he's after appears to have been put together in 1593 by Thomas Phelippes, a known spy of the era. At the same time, a mysterious man going by the name of de Tolomei, an assumed identity, takes a strong interest in Kate. His reasons are unknown, but he is every inch a threatening presence. Quick-witted Kate has to solve several riddles at once - and one of them is clearly a threat to her life! Hopping back and forth between the present and Christopher Marlowe's last days in 1593, the pattern is easy to follow and keep straight. On the other hand, the threads of several mysteries going on at the same time does none of them any particular justice. If it wasn't fairly obvious early on that two of the cases were entwined, it would be a frustrating book to read. It was a pleasant surprise which stories turned out to be entwined, but not enough of a thrill to make up for the too-much-going-on-at-once atmosphere. The obvious Kit Marlowe/Kate Morgan relationship is a little too cutesie; the screen name of Jade Dragon was incredibly unimaginative and the characters that seemed to me to have the greatest potential - Kate's father, Senator Donovan Morgan, her friends Jack and Adriana - were almost pointless, for the amount of time spent on developing them. Oxford student Vera Carstairs, director Alexis Cruz and others were introduced for what seems no reason at all, unless the author is hoping to follow this book up with another. If she does, I'll probably read it when the price reaches a penny on Amazon, but I'm not likely to make much of an effort otherwise. As a last thought, I'm not at all fond of books that include Book Club guides - it gives me the feeling the author and/or publisher might just think a wee bit too highly of their book. - AnnaLovesBooks

About the author

Leslie Silbert graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's and master's degree in the History of Science and studied Renaissance literature at Oxford. She works as a private investigator in New York City under the guidance of a former CIA officer and is currently writing her second Kate Morgan novel. For more information, please visit www.lesliesilbert.com.