Francis Bacon, as narrator, makes a decent guide to this engaging journey into a rather sordid story.

However, despite, as he repeatedly reminds us, being the cleverest man in England, and having an interest in what he calls mind-science (psychology to you and me), he is singularly bereft of what WE call "emotional intelligence".

As a result, the most intriguing character of the book, George Villiers, remains two dimensional. He is, of course, described several times as a mystery, but a perhaps more skillful author should have been able to divulge more of his motivation and state of mind (certainly before the final, not-altogether satisfying confrontation).

The book is a fun imaginative take on an infamous part of English history, but it central conceit (that Bacon never knew love, and then found it with Villiers) is completely fabricated. Bacon, despite some rumours of homosexuality, was apparently happily married to a woman (she has been erased in the book). On the subject of historical liberties it seems odd (considering the subject matter), that Blackmore should have decided to make that "other playwright Shakespeare" totally straight, when he is widely thought to have been 'bisexual'.