Since women were not allowed to perform on the Elizabethan stage, boy actors played some the most important roles created by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Juliet, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth and Beatrice are just a few of the characters first brought to life by young boys. Now, author John Pilkington is taking his readers into the world of the child actors with a new children’s mystery, “Traitor!” “Traitor!” feature Ben Button, a boy actor with the fictional Lord Bonner’s Players. “Traitor!” is actually the second book in Pilkington’s Elizabethan Mysteries series. The first volume “Rogues’ Gold” was published last year.
A book review in the “Western Morning News” from the UK says, “Traitor! opens with Lord Bonner’s Men rehearsing at the Rose Theatre, preparing to perform for Queen Elizabeth I at her Christmas revels.Their plans are foiled when their props store is burnt down and costumes stolen. Then the lead actor is stabbed on stage. Someone, it appears, is trying to stop them. Ben and Matt vow to get to the bottom of the mystery, which they feel sure must involve their rivals the Earl of Horsham’s Men.” Read the full review
Traitor! by John Pilkington (Elizabethan Mysteries Series) - Available in the UK
Publisher: Usborne Publishing Ltd
ISBN-10: 074608711X
ISBN-13: 978-0746087114
