Gooden, Philip

views updated

Gooden, Philip

(Philippa Morgan)

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Home—Bath, England. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Carroll and Graf, 245 W. 17th St., 11th Fl., New York, NY 10011-5300. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer and editor.

AWARDS, HONORS: Top-Ten Historical Novel designation, Booklist, 2004, for Mask of Night.

WRITINGS:

"NICK REVILL" MYSTERY NOVELS

Sleep of Death, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2000.

The Pale Companion: A Shakespearean Murder Mystery, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2002.

Alms for Oblivion: A Shakespearean Murder Mystery, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2003.

Mask of Night, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2004.

An Honorable Murderer, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2005.

OTHER

(Editor) The Open Door, And Other Ghost Stories, 1990.

(Editor and author of introduction and notes) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World and Other Thrilling Tales, Penguin (New York, NY), 2001.

(Editor) The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes, Robinson (London, England), 2002.

(As Philippa Morgan) Chaucer and the House of Fame (novel), Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2004.

Also author of the The Guinness Guide to Better English.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A mystery titled Chaucer and the Legend of Good Women.

SIDELIGHTS: Philip Gooden is the author of several history-mysteries, including those in a series revolving around Nick Revill, an actor at a theater company who also happens to be a sleuth. The plots of the "Nick Revill" books parallel plays by William Shakespeare. In the first book in the series, Sleep of Death, Revill gets a job with the Chamberlain's Men, an acting troupe and is offered temporary housing by a fellow actor who lives in the Eliot household. Revill soon discovers that his new roomate's father has died and the man's mother almost immediately remarried her deceased husband's uncle, reflecting the story line in Shakespeare's Hamlet. It does not take long for Revill, who narrates the story, to become suspicious and start to investigate the father's death, which surprisingly leads him to suspect the noted playwright of the Chamberlain's Men. Writing on the Crime Time Web site, Anne Curry called Sleep of Death a "promising start" to a series and noted that, "Despite … dramatic stereotypes, the book has an underlying darkness which is emphasized by the narrative device of the murderer interjecting his thoughts into the main story."

In The Pale Companion: A Shakespearean Murder Mystery readers find Revill and his acting company performing Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Like the play itself, the acting troupe is to perform the play for the marriage celebration for Lord Elcombe's son. Revill soon discovers that the groom is not interested in marriage. When an eccentric woodsman hangs himself and Lord Elcombe is found murdered, Revill joins local magistrate Adam Fielding in tracking down the killer or killers. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the book "a pretentious stream of allusions, puns, and literary sallies" that "provides endless in-jokes for the enlightened while muffling Nick's otherwise pleasant chatter for everybody else." However, Rex E. Klett, writing in Library Journal, noted that Gooden;s "solid and intriguing plot result[s] in a fine historical mystery."

The plot of Alms for Oblivion: A Shakespearean Murder Mystery coincides with Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida. Revill is the primary suspect in the murder of an old friend who was competing with Revill for a part in the play. Soon another fellow actor is killed, as well as Nick's girlfriend Nell, who was also a prostitute. Now on the run, Revill sets out to find the real killer. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "Those familiar with the more vicious dramas of the Elizabethan period will particularly appreciate this tale … written in readable modern English." Klett, once again writing in Library Journal, called Alms for Oblivion "an excellent Elizabethan historical," while Booklist reviewer Connie Fletcher noted that, "As usual, Gooden devises a fiendishly intricate mystery in a well-realized historical and literary setting."

The players are planning a private performance of Romeo and Juliet in Mask of Night. The play is staged as part of an effort to halt the feuding between two families. When Shakespeare's friend, Dr. Fern, is stabbed to death backstage, Revill seeks out the killer; meanwhile the deadly plague begins to spread. While a Kirkus Reviews contributor felt "the lunatic serial killer subplot doesn't quite mesh with the more rational history." Connie Fletcher praised the effort in Booklist, noting that "Gooden may be the best history-mystery writer going" and "Revill is a steadily developing, complex character."

An Honorable Murderer finds Revill acting in Ben Johnson's play Masque of Peace, which is being staged in London. He soon becomes entangled in political intrigues involving the negotiations of a peace treaty between Spain and England—including a conspiracy to derail these negotiations. A series of suspicious deaths leads Revill to start considering those around him as possible suspects, including Johnson himself. Although a Publishers Weekly contributor found the mystery's resolution "less than satisfying," the reviewer went on to note that "Shakespeare fans will be intrigued by Gooden's intriguing use of themes from both Othello and Hamlet." A Kirkus Reviews contributor, however, liked the "enjoyably twisty ending."

Under the pseudonym of Philippa Morgan, Gooden began another history-mystery series with his book Chaucer and the House of Fame. This time, fourteenth-century writer Geoffrey Chaucer, before his days as author of the Canterbury Tales, is on a case that involves Chaucer helping the English monarch King Edward III secure political relations with a French nobleman. When an assassin of unknown loyalties commits a series of murders, Chaucer and his companions set out to solve the crimes. A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted the author "wraps a muted mystery in a crackling adventure and some top-notch history." David Pitt, writing in Booklist, noted that Gooden "has created a central character and a story that will leave readers clamoring for more."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2003, Connie Fletcher, review of Alms for Oblivion: A Shakespearean Murder Mystery, p. 1544; February 15, 2004, Connie Fletcher, review of Mask of Night, p. 1042; September 1, 2004, David Pitt, review of Chaucer and the House of Fame, p. 70.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2002, review of The Pale Companion: A Shakespearean Murder Mystery, p. 456; March 15, 2003, review of Alms for Oblivion, p. 430; February 1, 2004, review of Mask of Night, p. 110; August 1, 2004, review of Chaucer and the House of Fame, p. 717; February 15, 2005, review of An Honorable Murderer, p. 201.

Library Journal, June 1, 2002, Rex E. Klett, review of The Pale Companion, p. 200; July, 2002, Denise J. Stankovics, review of The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes, p. 80; May 1, 2003, Rex Klett, review of Alms for Oblivion, p. 159.

Publishers Weekly, June 10, 2002, review of The Pale Companion, p. 44; March 10, 2003, review of Alms for Oblivion, p. 56; August 2, 2004, review of Chaucer and the House of Fame, p. 55; March 14, 2005, review of An Honorable Murderer, p. 48.

School Library Journal, October, 2003, Jane Halsall, review of Alms for Oblivion, p. 207.

Weekly Standard, January 3, 2005, Jon L. Breen, review of Chaucer and the House of Fame, p. 31.