Searcher of the Dead
A Bess Ellyott Mystery
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4.7 • 7 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Join widowed herbalist Bess Ellyott as she navigates the dark side of Elizabethan London in this kick-off to a stunningly atmospheric historical mystery series.
“A treat for fans of all things Tudor. This is the book Agatha Christie would have written if she had worn a farthingale.” —Deanna Raybourn, New York Times bestselling author of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries
Living amid the cultural flowering, religious strife, and political storms of Tudor England, Bess Ellyott is an herbalist, a widow, and a hunted woman. She fled London after her husband was brutally murdered, but the bucolic town in the countryside where she lands will offer her no solace. She still doesn’t know who killed her husband, but she knows one thing: The murderer is still out there. This becomes all too clear when Bess’s brother-in-law, a prosperous merchant, is himself found dead—dangling from a tree, an apparent suicide.
But Bess doesn’t believe that for a moment, and nor do her neighbors. Competition is cutthroat in the 17th century, and word around the town holds that the dead man is a victim of rival merchants scheming to corner the wool market. Bess, though, is convinced the killer is out to destroy her family.
Town constable Christopher Harwoode will cross members of his own family to help Bess find the killer—whose next target may very well be Queen Elizabeth I—in this unshakably gripping, devilishly unpredictable series debut that will delight fans of Alison Weir and Philippa Gregory.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1593, this solid series launch from Herriman (No Pity for the Dead and one other Mystery of Old San Francisco) introduces herbalist Bess Ellyott, who flees London for Wiltshire, where she has family, after her husband's suspicious death. But the countryside is not the peaceful refuge she seeks: her merchant brother-in-law, Fulke Crofton, is found hanging from a tree. Even though the coroner rules it a suicide, Bess examines the corpse in secret and decides otherwise and then launches her own investigation, aided by Constable Kit Harwoode. Trying to solve the mystery plunges Bess into the fascinating political and religious turmoil of the Elizabethan era, when Catholic plots seethed against the Protestant queen. The plot builds, at times slowly, to a satisfying conclusion. Readers who relish details of daily life in a Tudor town and dialogue littered with "zounds" and "good morrow" will enjoy this story most; romance fans will savor the budding attraction between Bess and Kit. Herriman is off to a promising start with this Tudor historical.
