Allen & Unwin | 2 January 2025 | 496p | Hardback edition | Review copy

It is 1685 and England is not ready for another Civil War. The arrival of the Duke of Monmouth, the late Charles II’s illegitimate son, at the head of a meagre army, to seize the crown from his uncle, the unpopular Catholic James II, is doomed to failure. Lord Jeffreys is appointed to judge the hundreds of unhappy souls who joined Monmouth in Dorset and were defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. The King wants each to pay the full, terrible price of a traitor’s death. It’s up to Elias, the Duke of Granville and his mother Lady Jayne Harrier to try and prevent the Bloody Assizes from doing their worst. But to do that, Granville must play a dangerous game, facing a judge who is tortured by illness and pain, who will do everything to please his king, at whatever cost.

The Players is the sequel to The Swift and the Harrier, the tale of Jayne Swift, a physician who brought comfort to both sides during the English Civil War and who married William Harrier. Forty years on, we are now introduced to their son, Elias, who is every bit as cunning and remarkable as his father. Once more, England is faced with dangerous times and an unpopular king. Elias will walk a fine line to try and prevent the previous trauma faced by the ordinary men and women of the countryside who were failed by the noblemen who led them.

Minette Walters is a fine writer. There can be significant gaps between the novels but they’re always worth the wait. While I’m relatively familiar with the events of the Civil War, the 1680s are more of a mystery but I liked how this novel has characters who are well aware of the lessons of the past and these inform their actions during this new crisis. It is also great to see Jayne again. Now in her 70s, she has a less active role but it’s certainly a significant one, and she has a younger counterpart in the wonderful Miss Althea Ettrick. Elias is also an appealing character – a little rakish, charmingly insolent, witty and a bit of an engineer on the side.

The other main character is Judge Jeffreys, the original Hanging Judge. Here I faced my one difficulty of a novel that I otherwise enjoyed very much. I wasn’t sure if we were to have sympathy with him. I couldn’t find any. He’s clearly played by the more intelligent Elias but his mother seems to have genuine care for him. I couldn’t see past the poor souls, many hundreds in number, in the prison cells of Dorset, facing the very worst. But I think it’s up to the reader to determine the culpability of Jeffreys and that of his king.

Despite that, this is a fascinating novel that tells of a tumultuous time between 1685 and 1688. This was a troubled century indeed and there is closure here. There is a sense of the old ways, the old religion, feudalism, old views on the place of women, the role of the King, finally meeting their match – science, education, medicine, rationality, peace at last.