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A Summer of Discontent

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Gregory's eighth installment of the Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles takes our unassuming hero and his overly self-important sidekick, Senior Proctor Michael, out of Cambridge, hot footing it to the Isle of Ely in the Fens, to assist Michael's patron, de Lisle, Bishop of Ely, who has been accused by Lady Blanche de Wake of murdering William Glovere. Add two more apparent suicides (Haywarde and Chaloner) and multiple burglaries (pinned on the gypsies, represented by Eulalia,Guido, and Goran) and within thirty pages another well-crafted murder mystery is underway from the pen of this excellent pseudonymal author.
Very quickly Bartholomew ascertains that the three 'suicides' were in fact murdered in the same manner (a sharp implement inserted into the base of the neck) and the pressure quickly applies as Michael needs to solve the case to save de Lisle. Eight more murders follow before we catch our culprit(s), six of them monastic, as Gregory skilfully weaves a tale of plotting rebellion and political intrigue together.
Moving away from Cambridge has given Gregory the chance to develop several new characters. As we visit the place where Michael took his vows, we meet the obese sub-prior Thomas, the greedy almoner, Robert, the architect prior, Alan, the sub-hosteller, William, the kindly resident physician Henry, his recalcitrant and nasty knife-obsessed assistant, Julian and a group of seditious townsfolk, represented by the insidious Leycestre and his nephews who are supported by the parish priest, John.
The return of Tysilia, the overly promiscuous 'niece' of de Lisle (we in fact discover she is the fruit of a union of de Lisle and his accuser, Blanche), from the preceding 'An Order for Death' provides an entertaining aside. Gregory has created a useful and enigmatic character in Tysilia. A loose canon, she can get the plot moving whenever Gregory has sown up things a bit too tightly, and you can't help feeling that underneath the veneer of stupidity, there must be concealed a cunning mind.
So, we move from barns and vineyards to infirmaries and local taverns, are presented with the inevitable politics and feuds that a closed society generates, are brought near the inherent rebellious problems that a feudal society with such a gulf between rich and poor generates, experience Bartholomew's frustration with the gluttonous monks and his inability to get in to the library and revel in the discomfort that Michael experiences when he becomes the target for Tysilia's amorous intentions.
This novel is neatly summed by Bartholomew when he declares that the problem in solving the murders is that they have so many relevant snippets of information but no thread. There are many characters who have expressed personal motive for killing at least one, but never all, of the victims, and there is a decided lack of apparent motive most of the way through. Still, by the time we end up racing after the murderer(s) into the under repair cathedral and we get the inevitable summation of events Michael eventually (dis)proves Ely's culpability in the first murder which started it all off and we are provided with immense mind-bending fun along the way.
Gregory's ability to set scene and plot in such a short space of time, taking you right into the heart of thirteenth century England is faultless. Her ability to portray the town of Ely, and specifically its priory is a delight and of the highest class. The Bartholomew series is now set as one of the finer sleuthing establishments and I can only hope it is a long time before the author downs her pen.

Susanna Gregory does not write your run-of-the mill medieval mystery story. In the first place, her books are quite long and she takes the time to develop a real storyline along with her mystery. In the second place, she writes of real historical happenings - in this case a summer uprising that occurred near Cambridge about 7 years after the Black Death. So not only do you get a good story with a good plot, a good mystery that keeps you guessing to the last minute, you get a little education too. This book was exceptionally good, I thought. And the denouement at the end shocked me completely. I usually guess who the murderer is in a lot of mysteries, but I did not guess the whys and wherefores of this particular mystery. Also, be warned that Ms. Gregory seems to turn up a lot of dead bodies in one of her stories. In this case, some eight or nine. I won't say anymore because I don't want to give the story away. That would be a shame because this one is such fun.