November 15, 2017
In Doherty's (A Pilgrimage to Murder, 2017) latest Brother Athelstan Medieval Mystery, the Great Revolt of 1381 is over, yet the streets of London are still rife with danger. Brutal gangs exert a dangerously insidious influence over their rival territories, but no gang master is more feared than Simon Makepeace, otherwise known as the Flesher. When Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston, Lord High Coroner of London, join forces to solve the murder of a priest inside the confines of a locked church, the mystery also involves the disappearance of a corpse awaiting burial and a stolen cache of money belonging to Makepeace. As his sleuths reach back into the past, long-buried secrets critically affecting present-day events are unearthed. Conjuring up medieval London in all its grime and glory, Doherty keeps readers guessing and the pages turning with yet another intricately plotted whodunit steeped in history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)
September 15, 2018
Doherty has written historical mysteries set in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. This first volume of his new series is set in 1471. The Wars of the Roses are in full bloom. Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, and mother to Henry Tudor (later, King Henry VII of England), is the prime suspect in a case of multiple murder. Luckily, her loyal clerk, Christopher Ulswicke, is a smart and resourceful investigator, and he refuses to believe the countess could have committed these despicable crimes. Doherty, a historian himself, possesses extensive knowledge of the period, but he is not obvious about displaying it. You won't find big clumps of fact-laden exposition, or be forced to listen to characters telling each other things they already know for the benefit of the reader. Historical-mystery fans should settle in for another fine series from a genre pro.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)
August 13, 2018
Christopher Urswicke, the protagonist of this middling series launch set in 1471 from Doherty (the Brother Athelstan mysteries), serves Margaret Beaufort, the mother of the future Henry VII, as her “personal clerk and leading henchman.” What starts as straight historical fiction, chronicling the House of York’s bloody path to power during the Wars of the Roses, eventually becomes a whodunit when Urswicke learns that four men were fatally stabbed in a locked room in a London tavern. When suspicion falls on his mistress, Urswicke has a strong incentive to identify the murderer or murderers. A narrative that treats the mystery as an afterthought, coupled with a surfeit of explicit violence (“The victim was no longer a man, just a sodding heap of gore”) and a solution that’s not one of this prolific author’s most ingenious, makes this a lesser effort. The innovative setting offers hope that future entries will be more successful.