Synopsis:
When the severed heads of beggars are found outside of Oxford and then the university Regent himself is murdered, a royal request for Sir Hugh Corbett sends the sleuth to investigate
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.
One of P. C. Doherty's most complex and intriguing characters returns in a new medieval mystery set in fourteenth-century Oxford. Sir Hugh Corbett, former courier and clerk of the Secret Seal, is hastily recalled into service by King Edward I when a treacherous assassin calling himself the Bellman begins issuing threats against the Crown. In order to command the king's immediate attention, the Bellman invokes the name of Simon de Montfert, Edward's onetime rival for the throne of England, while terrorizing the good citizens of Oxford. Although the Bellman's initial victims are all beggars, soon several faculty members of the university's elite Sparrow College meet untimely deaths. Traveling to Oxford at the king's behest, Sir Hugh undertakes a life-threatening mission as he matches wits and nerves with an academic genius who has a flair for the dramatic. Doherty's authentic historical detailing will appeal to discriminating fans of medieval mysteries who cut their teeth on the masterful works of Ellis Peters. Margaret Flanagan
Recently shed of his duty to King Edward as agent and courier, Sir Hugh Corbett finds he must reenter the king's service to route out another murderer. Someone in or near Oxford has murdered a series of beggars, leaving their grisly heads hanging in nearby trees. When treasonous proclamations appear on a church door and murder also strikes down the university's regent and others, Corbett begins to wield his astute powers of observation: are all of the murders somehow connected? The 14th-century setting, detailed authenticity, sound plotting, and well-crafted prose will appeal to fans of historical mysteries and attract new readers to the series (e.g., A Tournament of Murders, LJ 8/97).
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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