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Dame Frevisse Mystery, #5
Margaret Frazer
Robert Hale
19 January 2012 / ISBN: 9780709095965
Historical Mystery / 1435 Oxfordshire, England
Amazon
US
- UK
Reviewed
by Rachel A Hyde
At St Frideswide's
Nunnery Dame Frevisse is chafing under the new rule of Prioress
Alys. Dame Claire confesses that she vowed to make a pilgrimage
to the shrine of their abbey's saint if the previous prioress was
spared pain in dying and Frevisse is chosen to accompany her on
the journey. En route they fall in with another group of travellers,
the wealthy Lionel Knyvet, his brother Giles and Giles's wife Edeyn.
They are all staying at the same place, the manor house of Minster
Lovell where the nuns also have some abbey business to transact.
Lionel is an epileptic at a time when such an affliction was thought
to be possession by a demon and is constantly on pilgrimage. Things
are going to be brought to a head during their stay and soon Frevisse
has another murder to solve.
I've read a lot of historical mysteries but this is one series that
is always a treat to encounter. For one thing the author has an
encyclopedic knowledge of her period, and her descriptions of daily
life interspersed with the political situation are as close to getting
under the skin of the period as you can get without a time machine.
For another she imbues her characters with realistic personalities
and never falls into the usual historical novelist's trap of forgetting
how totally religion was a part of every aspect of life. This time
we know who the murderer is, which is not a type of detective story
I usually favor but in Ms. Frazer's capable hands it becomes a tale
of human evil which is every much a form of "possession"
as the epilepsy. There are lyrical descriptions of spring days spent
in a flower bedecked garden that conjures up images of tapestries,
and as with all good series a chance to discover what the various
series characters have been up to. First published in the US in
1996, this is the first UK printing and it is long overdue. I hope
that Robert Hale will reprint the entire series and allow UK readers
the chance to read the work of a mistress of the craft of writing.
Not to be missed.
Reviews of other titles in this series
The
Servant's Tale, 2
The
Outlaw's Tale, 3
The
Bishop's Tale, 4
The
Prioress’s Tale, 7
The
Bastard’s Tale, 12
The
Hunter's Tale, 13
The
Sempster's Tale, 15
The
Traitor’s Tale, 16
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