Land of Shadows

December 7, 2015
Royal’s thoughtful 12th medieval mystery (after 2015’s Satan’s Lullaby) takes Prioress Eleanor and Sister Anne, a skilled “sub-infirmarian” who nurses the sick, from Tyndal Priory to Woodstock Manor, where the prioress’s father, Baron Adam of Wynethorpe, has been struck by apoplexy during a royal visit. Another visitor to the dying baron is his son and heir, Sir Hugh. Accompanying Hugh is his bastard son, Richard. Meanwhile, Hawis, an attendant to the queen, is found hanged in her chambers at the manor. Since the queen is recovering from childbirth, Alan FitzRoald, the high sheriff of Berkshire, is keen to keep the news of Hawis’s death from the monarch until she’s stronger, and he asks Eleanor’s help in ascertaining how the woman died. Anne’s conclusion that Hawis wasn’t a suicide leads to Richard’s surprise confession to murder. Royal matches a clever story line with intelligent characterizations, while providing a disturbing look at anti-Semitism in 13th-century England.

November 1, 2015
Death lurks behind every door in medieval England. Prioress Eleanor, her sub-infirmarian, Anne, and her adviser, Brother Thomas, have rushed to Woodstock Manor, where Eleanor's father, Baron Adam of Wynethorpe, lies dying. Also present is the baron's son, Sir Hugh, a crusader who has never mentally recovered from the hell of the holy war, and Hugh's illegitimate son, Richard, who's afraid to tell his father that he wants to be a priest rather than a warrior. And the entourage of Queen Eleanor has been staying at Woodstock ever since she was obliged to stop there to give birth to a baby girl and rest until she can join her husband, King Edward I, who's off hunting. When Eleanor and Anne are asked to view the body of one of the queen's ladies found hanged, they determine that her death was murder. Eleanor and Thomas, who have solved many crimes (Satan's Lullaby, 2015, etc.), are compelled to investigate when young Richard confesses to the killing. The other likely suspects, whom Eleanor has befriended, are Chera, an elderly Jewish woman, and her two granddaughters, who have come to beg the queen to help them after Chera's physician son was accused of coin clipping and killed in a raid on the Oxford Jewish community. Now that all their possessions have been confiscated in the king's name, Chera wants to return to her relatives in France. Edward, fortified by other sources of money, has turned against the Jews his father invited to England as moneylenders. The dead woman whored for her husband, who sold the gifts given to her by infatuated young men, so there are plenty of other suspects. But the grieving prioress must struggle to clear Richard and Chera even as more people are murdered. Readers entranced by Royal's vivid historical descriptions will have an altogether easier time than Eleanor with its elementary mystery.

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January 1, 2016
Royal begins with the historical fact that in March 1279 Queen Eleanor of Castile stayed at Woodstock Manor in Oxfordshire to bear her thirteenth child, a girl, Mary. Surrounding that birth is a marvelous tale of intrigue, violence resulting from prejudice, and grace gained through caring. Also at the manor is Prioress Eleanor, attending her dying father, but her filial devotion is interrupted by the hanging of one of the queen's ladies in waiting. Prioress Eleanor's nephew, Richard Fitzhugh, is a suspect, and the victim's husband accuses a Jewish woman and her two granddaughters, who are at the manor seeking the queen's mercy, the woman's son having been lynched and her home confiscated by agents of the king. Prioress Eleanor and a monk traveling with her, Brother Thomas, believe neither story and work to find the true killer, aided by Eleanor's brother, nursing battle scars from the Crusades, and the honest local sheriff. This twelfth in the series will appeal to fans of Ellis Peters and Peter Tremayne.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)