Valley of the Shadow
A Celtic Mystery
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- USD 12.99
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- USD 12.99
Publisher Description
In the forbidding valley of ancient Ireland, Sister Fidelma must uncover the truth behind a gruesome ritual killing to prevent a war.
In Valley of the Shadow, the 6th century Irish sleuth Sister Fidelma is dispatched by her brother, King Colgu of Muman, to the remote Gleann Geis valley. Her mission: to negotiate with the chieftain Laisre for permission to establish a Christian church and school in his fiercely pagan territory. But upon approaching the valley, Fidelma and her companion Brother Eadulf stumble across a chilling sight - the bodies of thirty-three slain young men arranged in a pagan ritual circle.
As an emissary of the king and a dalaigh of the Brehon courts, it falls to Fidelma to investigate the grisly murders. With the fragile peace of her brother's kingdom at stake, she must unravel the mystery behind the killings at grave personal risk. Venturing into the forbidden valley, this intrepid nun sleuth embarks on her most challenging and dangerous case yet in this authentic and suspenseful Celtic mystery set in 7th century Ireland.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf, her Saxon monk sidekick, are on their way to Gleann Geis, a remote pagan community in southwest Ireland, when they run across a horrible massacre: 33 young men have been ritually killed, their bodies laid out in a pattern peculiar to the ancient Druid faith. (As her fans know from the five novels in this well-researched series, most recently The Spider's Web, religious and political tensions simmer in seventh-century Ireland, though with its sophisticated legal system and fair treatment of women, it is one of Dark Age Europe's more civilized societies.) At Gleann Geis, the pair stumble on another murder, for which Sister Fidelma is arrested. The meek Eadulf has an easier time mounting a clever defense of his mentor than he does fending off the advances of the local chieftain's precocious 14-year-old niece. Released from confinement, Sister Fidelma is free to make full use of her sharp analytical powers to figure out who is behind the massacre and the seemingly unrelated murder of which she was unjustly accused. She does not disappoint. At the climax, the religieuse explains all, untangling a complex web of intrigue that moves from one surprising revelation to the next. While adept at plotting, Tremayne has an annoying habit of overusing adverbs. A door opens "boisterously," a mouth droops "pessimistically," while characters smile "thinly," "wanly," "warmly," "gravely," "grimly," "apologetically" and "maliciously." In the future one hopes that the author--or his editor--will put as much faith in plain verbs as Sister Fidelma does in her God.
