Heresy: An Historical Thriller

This historical mystery by S. J. Parris (nom de plume of Stephanie Merritt) is based on the life of Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher who left his life as a Dominican monk and fled the Inquisition, who wanted to question him for his views on the structure of the universe. He followed the ideas of Copernicus that the earth was NOT the center of the universe, but rather moved around the sun; further, Bruno believed that the sun was only one of many such possible universes.
In this novel, Bruno has worked his way through Europe and come under the patronage of the French king, Henri III. Having arrived in London in 1583 as a guest of the French ambassador, he is on his way to Oxford for a philosophical "disputation," when he is solicited by Walsingham, Elizabeth's head of security, to become a spy. Walsingham seeks to root out plots against the queen by the Catholics and feels that Bruno, as a former Catholic, can get close to those who continue to practice "the old religion" in secret. Oxford is supposedly a hotbed of such activities and indeed that is the case, as Bruno eventually discovers. He is treated with suspicion as a foreigner, and with outright disdain for his philosophical views by his hosts at Lincoln College. When one of the college Fellows is attacked by a starved hunting dog in a locked garden, Bruno would pursue an inquiry into murder. But the college rector, Underhill, dependent upon the continued patronage of the Earl of Leicester and others for survival, will protect the college's reputation at any cost. Someone slips a description of a martyr's demise under Bruno's door, suggesting the death was indeed murder, but Bruno is thwarted by the administrators of the college. It is not until a 2nd murder of a college Fellow occurs, again in a manner mirroring the death of a famous martyr, that the Rector seeks Bruno's help. By the time one of the students is murdered, Bruno has had his own life threatened and gathered enough information to send his conclusions to his friend, the poet Philip Sidney (nephew of the Earl), and set off to rescue two young people he feels are next on the list of the murderer. But he finds surprises instead of victims and he himself is captured again and look set to meet his end.
There are some fairly graphic descriptions of the torturous deaths of those captured and convicted of crimes, so this is not for the faint of heart. The cruelty of man, acting on behalf of their religious beliefs, always leaves me shaking my head. But then, people can be cruel for any number of reasons.
The book well captures the flavor of the times, when constant intrigue and violence surrounded the struggle for the English throne. The plot moves along and Parris has drawn reasonably complex characters. This is the first of what is, so far, a series of 4 books with Bruno as protagonist. Presumably they cannot continue for an indefinite time as he was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1600.