Murder's Snare
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Friar-sleuth Brother Athelstan is caught in a politically charged race against time! He must uncover the truth behind numerous gruesome murders in this tense historical mystery set in medieval London.
Normandy, 1358: The Free Company of the ‘Via Crucis – the Way of the Cross’ sweeps into the peaceful village of Avranches, like the riders from the Apocalypse, leaving nothing but death and hellish destruction in their wake.
London, 1382: Brother Athelstan is summoned to unpick the ugly truth behind a number of killings afflicting the great city. Some carried out like clean, efficient assassinations, all bearing the message 'Justitia Fiat – let there be justice', others inflicting torture and humiliation upon the bodies. But the victims all have one thing in common – they were all once members of Via Crucis.
With every new gruesome discovery, Brother Athelstan, with the help of Coroner Cranston, uncovers more clues which make up a most complicated riddle – but can he put together the last piece before the fate of the whole country is decided?
A skilfully plotted and researched medieval mystery which will appeal to fans of C.J. SANSOM
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
