Heresy, by S. J. Parris
Heresy, by S. J. Parris, is a novel set in the turbulent 16th century, a time of hatred between Catholics and Protestants, a perilous time carrying the threat of burning at the stake at the hands of the Inquisition, or being hung, drawn, and quartered if suspected of treason in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
The protagonist and narrator of this tale is Giordano Bruno, a former Catholic monk who has fled Italy to avoid prosecution by the Inquisition for reading forbidden books. Bruno, a proponent of Copernicus’s heliocentric theories, is a clever, resourceful, appealing figure with a broad world view and a good sense of irony. Bruno is invited to Oxford University to participate in a debate regarding his theories about the order of the universe. Upon his arrival in this academic enclave, he notes friction among some members of the faculty, while the unsettling disapproval and distrust of some are directed at him. When gruesome murders are committed in rapid succession beginning early in the first morning after Bruno’s arrival in Oxford and staged to evoke the deaths of early Christian martyrs, Bruno sets himself to find the killer, and finds his own life in danger. Spies for the government, forbidden documents in hidden compartments, secret Catholics, broken vows, a search for a legendary antique manuscript and an ill-fated romance enrich the plot and contribute to its heart-pounding climax. The manner of the murders and their religious overtones echo Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. I recommend this exciting page-turner wholeheartedly. 5 of 5 stars.
Giordano Bruno was a historical figure, a philosopher and a cosmological theorist, who agreed with Copernicus about the earth orbiting the sun (a heretical belief potentially punishable by death) and further proposed that the universe was infinite and that remote stars may be orbited by their own set of planets, a remarkably novel hypothesis for the time. Although he finds himself in good health at the end of Heresy, the historical record reports that, tragically, he was eventually captured and condemned by the Inquisition for his beliefs and burned at the stake.