The Devil's Hunt - Softcover

P C Doherty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747254397 ISBN 13: 9780747254393

Publisher: Headline Book Publishing, 1997

Synopsis

The golden summer of 1303 and Oxford is plunged into chaos. The severed heads of beggars have been tied by their hair to the trees in woods outside the city. John Copsale, the Regent of Sparrow Hall, has been found dead in his bed and it is being whispered that he was murdered by the mysterious 'Bell Man'. Then the college librarian and activist, Robert Ascham is discovered with a crossbow bolt in his chest. King Edward, hearing of the seething unrest in Oxford, arrives unannounced at Sir Hugh Corbett's country manor, and insists that Corbett go to the city to solve the murderous mysteries. And when the King commands, few can resist even if it means knowingly entering a dangerous and violent world...

About this title

About the Author

Paul Doherty was born in Middlesbrough. He studied History at Liverpool and Oxford Universities and obtained a doctorate for his thesis on Edward II and Queen Isabella. He is now headmaster of a school in north-east London and lives with his family in Essex.

From Kirkus Reviews

It's 1303 and Edward, King of England, has asked his onetime courier and chief clerk Sir Hugh Corbett (Satan's Fire, 1996, etc.) for help with a series of disasters besetting the town of Oxford. The university's Sparrow Hall, founded by the late Sir Henry Braose and his sister Mathilda, has been the scene of several faculty murders--Regent Copsale; much-loved librarian Ascham; and his friend Passerel, found poisoned in a local church. Then there are the headless corpses, mostly of beggars, found in the woods outside town. Compounding it all are the proclamations, signed ``Bellman,'' nailed to church doors and elsewhere, that praise the glories of the King's dead enemy the Earl de Montfort. Sir Hugh reluctantly agrees to investigate and, with faithful servants Ranulf and Maltote, moves into Sparrow Hall, where Mathilda still resides with her deaf-mute servant Master Moth. The students are an unruly lot, largely Welsh, bearing no love for the King and given to debauchery, and possibly worse, in Oxford's woody outskirts. Meantime, the masters have their own secrets, and more of them will die before Sir Hugh unmasks the evil spirit behind the mayhem. Tenth in a series that grows denser and more convoluted with every episode. Tension ebbs and flows sporadically amid the churchly rites, rehashed battles, hooded figures ever lurking in dark corners, and repetitious accounts of the town's filthy lanes and seedy inhabitants. A tangled, torpid slog. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Headline Book Publishing
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0747254397
• ISBN 13: 9780747254393
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256