The Nightingale Gallery: Being the First of the Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan - Softcover

Harding, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380717514 ISBN 13: 9780380717514

Publisher: Avon Books, 1993

Synopsis

The untimely death of King Edward III spurs a battle for the throne reserved for ten-year-old Richard, and Dominican Brother Athelstan is sent to investigate the death of the king. Reprint.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

P.C. Doherty, writing as Harding, launches yet another historical mystery series, this one featuring a medieval coroner of Falstaffian girth and deplorable manners, Sir John Cranston, and his able assistant, Brother Athelstan, a guilt-riddled Dominican, who takes careful notes of crime scenes, interrogations, and so forth when Sir John is sleeping off a tankard or two too many. In their introductory case, they're sent to investigate a murder/suicide: Sir Thomas, it seems, was poisoned by his servant Brampton, who then, in remorse, killed himself. But if that's so, why are so many others who were present that night also soon found dead? Has any of it to do with the affair between Sir Thomas's widow and his brother? The death of a sodomized page? The blackmailing of the young king's regent, who was conniving for the throne? Sir John and Athelstan painstakingly re-create Sir Thomas's death scene to wrest a confession from the guilty--and reveal a locked-room scenario as cunning as any ever devised by John Dickson Carr. Clever puzzle, bustling atmosphere, and one hopes the curmudgeonly Sir John will be toned down and made more likable in future endeavors. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal

Bursting with energy and drama, this 14th-century historical drama introduces an unlikely pair of sleuths: Brother Athelstan, friar at a poverty-stricken London church, and coroner Sir John Cranston. Their inquiry into the poisoning death of a powerful merchant takes them to mansion and hovel alike, facing deceptive nobles, crafty priests, and assorted felons. The pair's intelligence and wit call to mind Ellis Peters's more subdued Brother Cadfael, but they live in a rowdy city environment more reminiscent of Edward Marston. Great escape from the author, under the name P.C. Doherty, of The Whyte Harte ( LJ 1/89).
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Avon Books
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0380717514
• ISBN 13: 9780380717514
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 10