In this new novel - his last was the highly praised Westward to Laughter -- Colin MacInnes does for the London of Elizabeth I what he did for the London of Elizabeth II in Absolute Beginners. That is to to say, he fabricates a memorable city -- dangerous, colorful, and lewd -- and peoples it with a band of vivid men and women whose lives we follow with the most pleasurable attention. The time is 1598 to 1600. Country-born Aubrey, son of a bawd, comes to the city to find his fortune and gets entangled in the power battle between two murderous underworld gangs, headed by cutthroat whore-masters known as the Venice Doge and the Genoa Doge. The stews of London suffer a purge by the state, however, and one of the gangs is forced to seek refuge in Epping Forest, the scene of Aubrey's boyhood. There occur a series of events that stir the imagination of the rising dramatist of the age, William Shakespeare, and provide the Globe Theatre with one of its most successful plays.