The Devil's Seal
A Mystery of Ancient Ireland
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4.6 • 16 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Ireland, A.D. 671. An Anglo-Saxon delegation arrives in Cashel to debate the new religious rules that have been handed down from Rome. The Abbot of Imleach leads the Irish delegation, which is hostile to the new rules from outsiders. Among the Anglo-Saxon group is Brother Eadulf's own younger brother, Egric, whom Eadulf hasn't seen for many years.
When the debate quickly becomes acrimonious, a local abbess has to step in as a mediator between the two sides. But not even a day later her body is discovered, bludgeoned to death. The Chief Brehon Aillín accuses young Egric of murder, and suspicions and tempers run high. With the war of words threatening to spill over into bloodshed, Fidelma is sure there is something more sinister behind the murder than religious differences, and she is resolved to find out what really happened-and why.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tremayne's 25th Sister Fidelma mystery set in seventh-century Ireland (after 2014's Atonement of Blood) should please fans interested in the next chapter in the lives of Fidelma and her companion, Brother Eadulf, but newcomers may wonder what the fuss is about. King Colgu, Fidelma's brother, is puzzled when a demand is made that he preside over a religious council, during which a delegation will present the merits of their different practices. When someone slits the throat of Brother Cerdic, a Saxon emissary, before the council begins, the monarch assigns Fidelma, who serves as a legal advocate, to find Cerdic's killer. The death toll continues to rise, even as Eadulf is unsettled by the resurfacing of his brother, Egric, whom he believed had died years earlier. Tremayne gets overly cute in making Fidelma a medieval Sherlock Holmes ("When all the possibilities have been eliminated, that which remains must be the solution"). The solution is less satisfying than usual.
