An Unholy Alliance

I have read all eleven of Ms Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew books and am pre-ordering numbers twelve and thirteen. Her discriptions of life and environment of fourteenth century Cambridge is incredible; she puts you right there in its rutted, muddy, smelly streets. Matthew is the most lovable character you would ever want to meet. All he wants to do is care for his patients and teach his students at Michaelhouse, a fourteenth century college at Cambridge, but Brother Michael is continually getting him involved in one murder mystery after another. He's such an innocent when it comes to the ways of the world, and for a guy who doesn't want to get involved, he winds up in some dangerous and sometimes funny predicaments. The plots are complicated; Ms Gregory has many threads going at one time. It's fun to try to pick your way through the red herrings to see if you can find the soultion, or solutions, before Matt and Brother Michael. I bet you can't, but the books are so great you'll love trying.

Susanna Gregory is the pseudonym of a Cambridge academic who was previously a coroner's officer. Her series of mediaeval mysteries have gained a formidable following. This book is the second in the series and introduces the physician Matthew Bartholomew to the reader. There are now a number of books in the series and they are always eagerly awaited by the author's fans. Besides practising medicine Matthew is also a teacher at a Cambridge University and his sometimes unorthodox treatment of his patients draws accusations of heresy from his more traditional, but less skilled colleagues. The year is 1350 and we have moved on two years (A Plague on Both Your Houses). The people of Cambridge are struggling to overcome the effect of the Black Death. The countryside is overrun with bands of outlaws and the high death rate of the plague has taken many of the priests and monks and left their parishioners vulnerable to the many cults that are circulating in the wake of the plague. At Michaelhouse Matthew Bartholomew has got the urgent job of training new physicians to replace those lost to the Black Death, but when the body of a friar is found in massive chest that houses the university's store of precious documents Matthew is called away from his teaching duties to investigate the strange death . . .

Two years or so after the events of "A Plague on Both Your Houses", Matthew Bartholomew is displeased to find himself once more investigating murders and mysterious goings on in Cambridge, 1350. This time, his investigations are not a matter of choice; he and his colleague from Michaelhouse, the Benedictine monk Brother Michael, have been ordered by the University Chancellor to get to the bottom of things.There's a lot to like about Susanna Gregory's series about Bartholomew. She brings medieval Cambridge to life in all its turbulence and dirt, and incorporates all sorts of period detail so that it seems entirely natural, not like you're being given a lecture on how people lived then. She has created many likeable characters, without ever making them seem unrealistically modern in their sensibilities. Bartholomew, the physician and university lecturer and hero of the tales, is the best of these: thoughtful, dedicated, and kind, but also naive, temperamental, and rash. Other recurring characters, even those with bit parts, are similarly engaging. She really uses the University of Cambridge, having her characters investigate according to the rules of logic they have been taught, and making the colleges, students, and masters a strong part of her tales. Gregory also has some real skill at comic writing, which makes for the occasional hilarious interlude.I read Gregory's books non-stop, they are that compelling, but I am not always satisfied when I finish them. I am not convinced the reader is given enough clues to figure things out. On the other hand, I practically never manage to work out any mystery novels I read, so maybe other readers don't have this complaint. The plots are very convoluted, so it can be hard to keep track of everything that's going on, and sometimes the denouement doesn't seem worth everything that's gone before. But again, that's perhaps just a personal judgement, rather than an actual flaw. The writing could sometimes be a bit more polished, and all the rhetorical questions do get on my nerves after a while."An Unholy Alliance" is amongst the best of Gregory's books. It is slightly different in tone to "A Plague on Both Your Houses", but that's not a criticism. It has two intertwined mysteries that it is becoming more and more urgent to have solved: an attempted theft from the University Chest which leads to a mysterious death, and the murders of the town's prostitutes. Bartholomew and Michael get to the bottom of the first mystery in a way they never expected. But will anyone believe Bartholomew when he proposes a solution to the second? The denoument is exciting, and the motives of the criminals and the way everything comes together at the end is believable and satisfying.One reason I like Matthew Bartholomew as a character so much is because he's not a superman. He often puts the pieces together, but he rarely, if ever, does it all on his own. Nor does he always get it right, or know what to do in every situation, or prove

I picked up the first Susanna Gregory novel (A Plague on Both Your Houses) in England for my mother, a lover of mysteries, and had no intention of reading it myself as I am inclined to find such books trite and boring. However, circumstances led me to pick up the book one day, and I could not put it down. The mixture of medieval culture, medicine, humor, and mystery made for a delicious brew. I finished the novel the same day and read the second novel in the series, An Unholy Alliance, the next day. This second book is by far better than the first, mainly because Gregory doesn't have to spend as much time developing the characters. The scandals in this mystery -- seemingly Satanic rituals and witchcraft, to name a couple -- certainly transcend medieval Cambridge and reflect our own times. As usual, Gregory kept me guessing throughout the novel in a series of exciting twists, and by the time I was finished I was ready for more. This series is engaging, suspenseful, and delightful even for those of us who normally do not enjoy mysteries. Give this book a try (but read A Plague.. first!).

I've read all three of Gregory's Dr. Bartholomew mysteries available in the US. "Unholy Alliance," like the other two is fascinating and entertaining. Matthew Bartholomew is an engaging hero. Be aware however that the books have been published out of order in the US. The correct order is "A Plague on Both Your Houses," "Unholy Alliance," and "A Bone of Contention."