A Killer in Winter (Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles)

Susanna Gregory is not as prolific a writer as many of the authors who write this style of book and the anticipation of waiting for a new title can be quite frustrating for the reader. However the wait is always worthwhile. Her choice of Cambridge as the main backdrop to her books is inspired. It seems to lull the reader into a world of spires and colleges inhabited by the students and academics who teach there. There is also always the underground rumblings of the inhabitants of the city who are constantly at loggerheads with the colleges and hate the students intensely, thinking of them as nothing more than thugs and bully boys. Christmas is coming and while Matthew Bartholomew's colleagues in the Cambridge colleges are preparing for the festivities, Matthew in his role of physician is struggling to help the poorer citizens through one of the worst winters in living memory. Matthew however, is given a brief respite from his duties when Brother Michael calls on him to identify a man found dead, probably from the freezing cold in one of the churches. The victim is servant to the husband of Matthew's lost love Philippa. Later, the husband himself is the victim of a tragic accident on treacherous ice. Or, perhaps the death is not the accident everyone supposes it to be . . . Susanna Gregory has a well proven formula and she sticks to it. Her books are well written, well researched and most of all they are enjoyable to read. I love them.

It's been too long since I read a Susanna Gregory Matthew Bartholomew book. She is my favourite medieval author out there, and as I read this book I remembered why. Her books are long, and there is a lot of detail, but it doesn't seem that they get too bogged down because everything she writes is in aid of her plots. This book has the best description of a medieval Christmas celebration, and a medieval winter that I've ever read, and believe me I've read a lot of medievals. In this book Matthew and Brother Michael are faced with a number of deaths, and only one of the three appears to be an actual murder, but they seem to strangely be connected in some way. Though how could one of Cambridge's students, and two seemingly unrelated strangers have anything in common is beyond them for some time. So now they have to try to find the murderer and they are doing it at the worst possible time. Cambridge is gripped in the coldest winter they've ever experienced and it is Christmas time as well. They set out to unmask a murderer and as they do that, we the readers meet a wonderful cast of characters. Come along for the ride and be a part of a Cambridge Christmas in 1354. Ms. Gregory's books are so real that you WILL feel like you're there.

The excellent pseudonymal Susanna Gregory returns with her ninth installment of the Matthew Bartholomew chronicles and doesn't disappoint. From the prologue where the messenger Josse's accidental death turns out to be a boon for someone and the death of Norbert, laconic brother of the now retired Sheriff of Cambridge's, Richard Tulet, Gregory settles into her latest mystery with effortless ease, instantly creating a a tuly piscine tale with both plot and scene with that easy familiarity that is her hallmark.We plunge into a humorous opening with Michael's ridiculous attempts to spy on a Cambridge newcomer, Harysone, based on personal dislike and demanding Matthew declare the man's insanity without actually meeting him before swiftly finding another corpse in Michaelhouse's church. The anticipation of the coming Christmas means that Michael is forced to choose which murder to investigate first and Bartholomew's life is complicated by the return of his once-betrothed - Phillipa Abigny.Phillipa is drastically changed from the woman who left him to marry the fishmonger and Mayor of London-desiree, Turke and both she and her brother, Giles Abigny arrive to stay at Edith and Stanmore's house.Murder and mayhem swiftly follow as Christmas sets in, Michaelhouse electing Deynham its twelve day Lord of Misrule. Unlike in Gregory's previous offering up at Ely, the murdered body count is low this time (though the eventual tally is high after it turns out everyone was culpable to some degree and ends up dying to tie up all the loose ends). There is Norbert, the dead `beggar' in St Michael's is discovered to be Gosslinge, Turke's servant and Turke himself dies suspiciously after literally skating on thin ice. Gregory kills off the old rivermen from preceding novels, Aethelbad and Dunstan as the harsh winter takes its toll (there's more snow that Cambridge has ever seen since!) and we unravel more of the shadowy political dealings that weave through Cambridge.Amongst it all runs the mysterious Dympna, a charitable organisation that ends up having a sideline, the Chepe Waits (comprising Frith, Makejoy, Jestyn and Dyna) a travelling band of thieving jugglers, the newly arrived and dislikeable Quenhyth, Sheriff Morice's corruption and a game of camp ball (ancient football). Ovying hostel gets a thorough runout with its head, Ailred. All of which has both Matthew and Michael scratching their heads at all the clues but unable to make sense of the sequence of events. The key to it all, in a delightful piece of murder mystery irony, is the Fraternity of fishmen and the protagonists relationships to each other.So, by the time Matthew ends up in a barn having a particularly nasty hayfork jabbed at him during his attempt to free both Michael and Kenyngham we have had a double denouement, the lengthy first answering most of the questions but not all, the second culminating in the fight and the final two culprits racing off with the charitable gold and falling into the icy