A Tapestry of Murders: The Lawyer's Tale of Mystery and Murder as He Goes on a Pilgrimage from London to Canterbury - Hardcover

Doherty, P. C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312140525 ISBN 13: 9780312140526

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 1996

Synopsis

A second installment in the mystery series based on the Canterbury Tales follows the Man of Law's story in which a trusted squire to the late dowager queen Isabella flees on the day of the queen's burial with an important document.

About this title

About the Author

P.C. Doherty is the author of several acclaimed mystery series including The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan, the Hugh Corbett medieval mysteries, and the Canterbury Tales of mystery and murder. He lives in England.

Reviews

Swift, intriguing and sometimes bleakly comic, this "dark tale of blood and passion" is told by one of Chaucer's pilgrims, the Man of Law. As he regales his fellow travelers with the horrendous events of 1358, the well-defined pilgrims offer surprising revelations of their own. The lawyer tells of Vallence, a French courtier favored by England's dying dowager queen Isabella, who was fatally stabbed while trying to flee the country. After the respected judge investigating the killing is in turn foully murdered, the Sheriff of London calls upon his kinsman Nicholas Chirke, a struggling young lawyer, to discover what the secret was that Vallence was trying to convey to France. The story takes off with lightning speed. As Nicholas and his enigmatic assistant, Scathelocke, begin to pry, an appalling number of corpses fall in their wake and a lovely murderess is seen busily dispatching underworld denizens as well as respected citizens. The atmosphere is wonderfully thick, as medieval London is revealed in all its foulness?its fetid air, greasy fog and a populace of rogues and vagabonds. Despite Doherty's tipping his plot hand too early, this second in the Canterbury mystery series (after An Ancient Evil) remains an absorbing, richly detailed story of malevolent men?and women?in devious pursuits.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this second of the author's stories modelled on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (An Ancient Evil, 1994), a tale is being narrated each evening by the Man of Laws to the group of pilgrims travelling to Canterbury in the mid-1300s. This one tells of London's young, struggling lawyer Nicholas Chirke. Tired of accepting the charity of the sister and brother-in-law he and his enigmatic servant Scathelocke reside with, Nicholas takes on the job offered by Sheriff Sir Amyas Petrie. The Sheriff wants Nicholas to ferret out the secret carried by Vallence, trusted squire of old Queen Isabella, recently deceased. Vallence had accompanied the Queen's body to London from Castle Rising in Norfolk, then attempted to board a Venetian galley bound for France. Mortally wounded in a confrontation with soldiers trying to arrest him, Vallence whispered something to Justice Stephen Berisford, an old acquaintance. Berisford is the next to die--forerunner of a slew of corpses to follow. Is London's master of the underworld--known as the Guardian of the Gates--behind all the mayhem, and why? Nicholas travels to Norfolk, looses his rapscallion friend Crabtree, discovers Scathelocke's true identity, and, in finding the answers, finally goes against his own conscience. With its clanking, disorderly storyline and clutter of subplots--all amid repetitive, graphic descriptions of bloody encounters and London's fetid byways--this is the least adroit, not to say dullest, of Doherty's often intriguing medieval mysteries. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Doherty offers an original twist on The Canterbury Tales. While Chaucer's pilgrims agreed to amuse each other with merry tales told along the road during the daytime, Doherty's pilgrims entertain their fellow wayfarers with dark and sinister tales recounted during the evening hours. In the man-of-law's tale, young Nicholas Chirke, an ambitious lawyer of modest means, is solicited by Sir Amyas Petrie, member of Parliament and sheriff of London, to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding the seemingly natural death of Dowager Queen Isabella and the murder of her loyal manservant. Caught in the cross fire of a delicate and dangerous probe involving possible treason and international intrigue, Nicholas begins to suspect that Sir Amyas is pursuing his own sinister agenda. An authentic and atmospheric portrait of medieval England, brimming with adventure and steeped in the irresistible aura of an enduring literary classic. Margaret Flanagan

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312140525
• ISBN 13: 9780312140526
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 247