“This is surely the best historical novel in many years,” wrote Peter S. Prescott in Newsweek about Death of the Fox, George Garrett’s unparalleled reentry, into the heart of the English Renaissance. His new novel, The Succession, is surely the finest since: a triumph of intellect and imagination that once more brilliantly re-creates Elizabethan England. After decades of rule, Elizabeth I lies dying. She has overcomes the Spanish, the Pope, power-hungry noblemen, even her beloved Essex. England is prospering under her; she is, they say, married to it. Who will succeed her? Who can? To read The Succession is to be plunged into the last days of this great age, to experience its humanity, color, pageantry, and drama; its grandeur, squalor, splendor, and folly. And to better imagine the procession that came before us (in any land) and the succession to follow. ***From Publishers Weekly The first of these three highly praised volumes is a fictionalized look at the courageous and gallant life of Sir Walter Raleigh, who awaits execution. According to PW , ``The whole panorama of Elizabethan and early Stuart England comes to life before our eyes.'' The Succession , an ``acutely intelligent, faithfully rendered historical novel,'' concerns the political rivalries and mercurial personalities rampant in turn-of-the-17th-century British society, as Queen Elizabeth I's reign draws to a close and James VI of Scotland prepares to step in. Completing the trilogy is a tale set in 1597 of two rival Londoners investigating poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe's death. ``Like an impressionist painting, vivid in its small, shimmering details, the novel conveys a picture of Renaissance society, offers richly nuanced character portraits and sparkles with bawdy humor and robust sexuality,'' said PW . [Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.]