Murder's Snare

November 15, 2024
A series of gruesome medieval murders have their roots in England's war with France. In the mid-1300s, Englishmen of power formed Free Companies that went to France to loot, rape, murder, and destroy. Now, they are paying the price for their sins. Members of Via Crucis are being killed in appalling ways, and it falls to Sir John Cranston, Lord High Coroner of London, and his friend Brother Athelstan to solve the crimes. French envoys are in London working toward peace, but one of their demands is turning over members of Via Crucis to face justice in France. Most are protected by the Crown, but someone's already delivering their heads to be displayed at the Tower. In addition to that series of crimes, someone's killed Bardolph the Tax Collector in a locked room at the Piebald Tavern, where many of Athelstan's parishioners congregate. When Cranston and Athelstan go to meet Thibault, John of Gaunt's Master of Secrets, he shows them the scourged corpse of another member of Via Crucis and introduces them to Sir Oliver Ingham, who explains that the remaining members plan to use their ill-gotten wealth to build a hospice for lepers. They next visit the Fisher of Men, who was also in France and recently found a treasure in the Thames. As the murders continue, Athelstan realizes that the really grisly ones are mimicking the Stations of the Cross. Two distinct groups seem to be seeking revenge, and with so many suspects it will be quite a task to unravel the series of macabre murders. The often-unpleasant sights, sounds, and smells of London come alive as a harrowing backdrop to a complex mystery.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 11, 2024
Doherty’s rip-roariing latest mystery featuring 14th-century Dominican priest Brother Athelstan (after Murder Most Treasonable) reinforces the author’s reputation as a master of historical crime fiction. In addition to serving as a clergyman, Athelstan employs his superior deductive talents to help Sir John Cranston, London’s lord high coroner, solve crimes. Cranston calls on Athelstan after a pair of killings among England’s elite rattles the upper classes. First, Lord Philip Kyne is beheaded in his manor by a masked figure, who then delivers Kyne’s head to the keeper of the London Bridge with instructions that it should be publicly displayed. Then a second nobleman is slain who shares a dark past with Kyne; decades earlier, both were members of the Via Crucis, an English military company in France who massacred civilians and looted their property after the English defeated the French army. As Athelstan develops a theory that the victims of that massacre have launched a revenge campaign, a tax collector is found stabbed to death in a locked and sealed room. Solving both mysteries will test the clergyman’s detection skills like they never have been before. As always, Doherty makes the streets of Medieval England teem with life and plays scrupulously fair with the reader. This is a deeply satisfying puzzle.

December 1, 2024
Doherty's latest Brother Athelstan mystery (after Murder Most Treasonable, 2023) begins in 1358, when Sir Edmund Lacey, Knight Banneret of the Free Company of the Way of the Cross, leads his crew on a destructive path of rape and pillage through Normandy. In 1382, Sir John Cranston, Lord High Coroner of London, engages Athelstan in his investigation of a series of brutal murders. Though at first they seem disconnected, Athelstan soon gleans that the victims are members of the Way of the Cross and that they are being killed according to the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Stations of the Cross. Meanwhile, the Children of Babylon, who were left orphaned as children in France and repatriated to England, want to present a pantomime at Athelstan's church, and someone is making threats to King Richard. It's ""mischief piled up on mischief,"" as Athelstan says, and Doherty weaves a complicated series of plotlines with vivid, dark, and bloody details of medieval England. Readers would do well to read his author's note at the end, which hints at future adventures for Athelstan.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.