The Lost Highlander - Kit Scarlett Tudor Mysteries #4

The Lost Highlander is the fourth Kit Scarlett Tudor mystery by Adele Jordan. Released 17th Mar. 2023 by Sapere Books, it's 276 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free. The other books in the series (now up to 4 books, with a fifth due out in June 2023), are also currently available on KU. 

This is a spy/espionage thriller set in the late Elizabethan period. Political machinations and currying favor in the court of the queen can cause dangerous, even deadly, fallout. One of the more valuable and competent operatives in the employ of untrustworthy spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham is an intelligent and capable female protege called Kit Scarlett. Kit is sent on a mission to deliver a missive and investigate the possible involvement of the allies of Mary Queen of Scots in the mounting attempts on the life of aging Queen Elizabeth. At the same time, Kit's partner hasn't returned from his last mission and has been MIA for a year. It's another well written installment to this excellent historical series.

The author is quite capable, and the characters are three dimensional and believable. Although part of a series, necessary backstory is written into the story, so it works well enough as a standalone. The dialogue (of necessity) is written to be entirely accessible to modern readers, and happily the author has managed to avoid glaring modern anachronisms. The adventure is engagingly well written around a framework of actual people and events from the period. It's skillfully interwoven and not always easy to see where real history shades into fiction.

Four and a half stars. With 4 books extant currently and a fifth due out soon, this would be a great choice for a series binge/buddy read. Fans of Ariana Franklin, Andrew Swanston, and SJ Parris will find a lot to enjoy here. I'm not entirely sure about the distribution availability for library use, but this is an exceptionally well researched and credible historical series and would be an excellent choice for public library acquisition, if available.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.