In Doubtful and dangerous, Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes have curated a collection of essays concerning the succession question in the ‘long’ 1590s, when, as the editors demonstrate, it was far from obvious that James vi of Scotland should accede the English throne after Elizabeth i. The volume succeeds in covering this rich topic, and the political and religious uncertainty that it engendered, from nearly every conceivable angle. Tackling the religio-political angle, Kewes overturns the scholarly assumption that English Puritans favoured James vi, while Peter Lake and Michael Questier look at the succession crisis in terms of the Archpriest controversy, with the late great Patrick Collinson investigating the opinion on the succession of Richard Bancroft as bishop of London. Looking at the court, no book about the Elizabethan fin de siècle would be complete without an examination of the brash rebellion of the earl of Essex, and Alexandra Gajda reveals that the pretext of a ‘popish plot’ was real enough to him. Essex's rival Robert Cecil is the subject of Alexander Courtney's study, which forensically analyses his secret correspondence with James vi in the crucial years 1601–3 in order to uncover its role in facilitating James's accession. Shifting from the court to the wider public, the next section includes contributions from Arnold Hunt, who examines the way in which sermons fitted into the ‘news culture’ of late Elizabethan England; from Richard Dutton, who persuasively argues that versions of Hamlet were ‘deeply informed by succession anxieties’ (p. 175); and from Richard A. McCabe, whose careful reading of poems by Spenser, James vi himself, and others, reveals the ‘poetics of continuity’ (p. 207). The final four essays look at ‘Britain and beyond’: Susan Doran shows how James's Scottish birth and untrustworthy reputation repeatedly stoked the succession question in the 1590s, while also convincingly portraying the succession as a force that ‘fostered senses of national identity’ (p. 230); R. Malcolm Smuts illustrates that the issue of ‘Britain’ was an important factor in the thought of the historian Sir John Hayward; Rory Rapple throws light on the often neglected Irish role in the succession issue, focusing on the parts played by Hugh O'Neill and the earl of Essex in Tyrone's Rebellion; and Thomas McCoog offers the continental perspective, in a fascinating and broad political examination. By concentrating on one historical topic and a relatively short time period, Doran and Kewes have produced a remarkably cohesive yet considerably varied volume: this is what most such volumes claim to achieve but all too often with unwieldy results. Each essay here, though, addresses the topic from a particular perspective, but then also speaks in some way to (at least one of) the book's themes: historical contingency, religious/national prejudice, the interplay of high politics and public opinion. Moreover, the book is good value, with each of its contributions offering insightful and original historical/literary analysis. It is an admirable achievement and an enjoyable read.