The Frost Fair - Hardcover

Marston, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0750521031 ISBN 13: 9780750521031

Publisher: Magna Large Print Books, 2004

Synopsis

Christmas 1669. The River Thames is frozen and London celebrates with a traditional frost fair. Among the throng are architect Christopher Redmayne and Constable Jonathan Bale. As they talk, one of Bale's sons slides onto thin ice and has to be rescued - leading to the discovery of a body embedded in the ice. It is Jeronimo Maldini, an Italian fencing master, and Christopher's brother Henry has been heard threatening him. Henry was so drunk that he cannot recall his actions, but now he faces execution unless Christopher can uncover the truth and prove his innocence.

About this title

Review:

Rather than exacerbating that winter's gloom, a sudden freezing-over of London's Thames River in 1669 becomes a cause of public delight in Edward Marston's The Frost Fair. "In place of a river, we have the widest street in Europe," exclaims architect Christopher Redmayne, as he observes the myriad merchants and entertainers who've mounted an eccentric celebration on the ice. But this revelry soon cools, after Redmayne and his sober-sided associate, Constable Jonathan Bale, discover a corpse trapped in the glacial crust. The deceased is Jeronimo Maldini, an Italian fencing master who was stabbed with a dagger belonging to none other than Redmayne's foppish, pleasure-seeking elder brother, Henry. Though once friendly, those two gents evolved into bitter foes, and Henry had rashly threatened to slay the duelist. Most Londoners, including Bale, are convinced of Henry's guilt, and the accused was too inebriated on the night of the murder to be sure of his own innocence. Christopher, however, is sure, and so sets off to find the real killer--an errand that will find him nearly drowned in the Thames and crossing swords with a "hero" of dubious acclaim. Meanwhile, the designer detective must fend off the amorous advances of a new client and, not insignificantly, prevent Henry's suicide in squalid Newgate Prison.

Although The Frost Fair is actually the fourth of British author Marston's Redmayne/Bale novels, it's the first to see U.S. publication. Like its predecessors, this circuitously plotted work adroitly portrays the alternately respectable and ribald atmosphere of post-Great Fire London. Christopher Redmayne, who labors to restore his city in the shadow of real-life architect Christopher Wren, has matured into a credible sleuth, bedeviled by his sybaritic sibling but forging a relationship of grudging respect with the puritanical Bale. If the tone of this series isn't quite so jauntily whimsical as that of Marston's better-known Nicholas Bracewell books (The Bawdy Basket, etc.), The Frost Fair nonetheless proves itself an historical mystery with thrills on top of chills. --J. Kingston Pierce

About the Author:

Edward Marston was born and brought up in South Wales. A full-time writer for over thirty years, he has worked in radio, film, television and the theatre, and is a former chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association. He is the author of sixty crime novels set in seven distinct periods of history, and a master of historical fiction. He is the author of the hugely successful Railway Detective series.

About this edition

• Publisher: Magna Large Print Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0750521031
• ISBN 13: 9780750521031
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 480