Fortune Like the Moon

Josse d'Acquin has been sent, by King Richard Plantagenet, to Hawkenlye Abbey. Hawkenlye was designed by Richard's mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and is run by a woman, the Abbess Helewise. Richard, at the decision of this Mother, had all prisoners released in celebration of Richard's coronation. Now a young nun has been brutally murdered and Josee is sent to find the killer and do damage control should the killer be one of the released prisoners. Clare has taken an interesting period of history and embedded it in the story in a way that is fascinating, but not distracting. The dialogue is very well done, not written in the vernacular of the time but with the influence in its cadence. I didn't find I was distracted by it. Josse and Abbess Helewise are interesting characters although we don't learn a lot about them. There are plenty of twists and turns to the story but my biggest quibble is the manner of the victim's death--it's a bit implausible. I very much enjoyed the book and shall definitely continue on with the series.

Sir Josse d'Acquin is sent by King Richard to investigate a murder at Hawkenlye Abbey, a crime that could put a cloud over his coronation, and a case of particular interest to his mother, Queen Eleanor. The setting is near Tonbridge, at a time when the town was a small village on the main road to London. Sir Josse teams up with Abbess Helewise to investigate and solve the mystery. The case opens up questions about arranged marriages, inheritances, and unrequited love. The investigation reveals surprises about relationships, motives, and actual events. The story is a tragedy for most secondary players, while Josse receives what is perhaps not an unexpected reward for his services.

Leave those old Edith Pargeter books languishing on the shelves. Forget Elizabeth Peters. Hide your cache of Paul Doherty books. Because here, my fellow readers, is the historical series to end all historical series'. Alys Clare is a brilliant writer, and she wonderfully evokes all things historical about the period. We have no way of knowing whether her details are correct, but they FEEL right. Which is all that matters. The attitudes and events and feelings and details have a certain authenticity about them, which is great. The plot is simple.....a young nun is found on the path outside an Abbey, her throat slit. Soon, another nun goes missing, and turns up dead. The Abess investigates, along with Sir Josse d-Acquin, friend of the King, who has been asked to inquire into the deaths too, in order to prove that the killer is not one of the fellons which the King recently gave pardon to in order to appease the people, and convince them of his goodwill. The writing is sharp, and the two lead character (Josse and the Abbess Helewise are great) they are incredibly likeable and human, and they work very well together. This series is incredibly fresh. The ideas are entirely original, and Clare frequently breaks through the accepted boundaries. She is a daring writer, not unwilling to try something new. the plots are original and interesting, the mysteries intriguing, and the solutions always realistic and satisfying. The resolution to this one comes with a nice amount of emotional impact...and to some could be very moving.Excellent. And, the novels in this series only get better and better. (Following on from this are..."Ashes of the Elements"#2..."The Tavern in the Morning"#3..."The Chatter of the Maidens"#4..."The Faithful Dead"#5..."A Dark Night Hidden"#6. ONly the first three have been released in the US, but the fourth has been released in the UK already, and is probably the best one so far.)Enjoy :)

In 1189, on the eve of her son Richard's coronation, Queen Eleanor -- think Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter -- opens England's jails and releases hundreds of prisoners as an act of Christian charity in the king-elect's name. But her canny public relations gambit threatens to backfire when a young nun is found dead amidst abundant evidence of rape, robbery and murder a bare day's ride from London. Richard, suffocating in the details of preparing for his coronation, can scarcely remember his courtiers' names. Nevertheless, he immediately perceives the danger to his reputation. Public opinion already points an accusing finger at the released prisoners. Richard dispatches Josse d'Acquin, knight bachelor, to Hawkenlye Abbey to investigate the nun's death and, with luck, scour this stain from the king-elect's name. For Sir Josse, the royal appointment owes more to being in the right place at the right time than to any special investigative gifts. Acutely aware of his own shortcomings in this area, Sir Josse remains determined not to let his king down. Fortunately for him, for Richard and for the entire Hawkenlye community, Sir Josse finds an unlikely ally and partner in Hawkenlye's abbess, the intelligent and world-wise Helewise. Like cogs on a well-aligned pair of gears, their talents and abilities mesh to discover the truth. Part of the freshness of this novel lies in the deft portrayal of life in late 12th-century England. Clare opens an unglazed window into the era without lapsing into the grotesque. Only once or twice did I question the veracity of research details, and those instances did not catapult me out of the story to any significant degree. Sometimes the monologues and dialogues seemed a shade too 20th-century-oriented. But, having traversed that particular Sword Bridge between historical accuracy and reader association myself, I could hardly hold Clare's choices against her. Even the chronic misuse of gerunds to indicate sequential rather than simultaneous actions (a far too common grammatical error in fiction today) didn't detract from my overall enjoyment. However, I found the well-rounded depiction of the characters themselves the most refreshing aspect of Fortune Like the Moon. Abbess Helewise and Sir Josse possess a healthy awareness of their individual strengths and weaknesses, which makes them believably human without appearing pretentious. The realistic, non-preachy, integration of religion into the characters' lives proved similarly refreshing at a time when so many authors have an axe to grind against Christianity in general and Roman Catholicism in particular. I raise a frothy flagon to the debut of medieval sleuths Helewise and Josse and look forward to toasting their many future successes.

King Henry I is dead and his wife Elinore of Acquitane is freed from jail. Everyone in England awaits the arrival of the new King Richard from overseas. As a gesture of good will and to demonstrate to the common person that he is the ruler of all of England, Richard grants clemency to the prisoners in the country's jails. Initially, the people applaud his bold move until someone kills a novice at Hawkenylye Abbey. The people believe one of the newly freed individuals is accused of committing the crime.An irate Richard dispatches one of his knights, Josse D'Aquin, to investigate the murder that could topple his reign. Josse immediately concludes that the assailant arranged the crime scene so witnesses could claim the novice was robbed and raped when in fact, the victim was neither. Josse joins forces with Abbess Helewise in an attempt to uncover the identity of the culprit before the Holy Spirit of the Abbey is destroyed forever.Readers will relish the arrival of a new crime-fighting duo on the scene especially Josse, an intellectual warrior who uses his brains to solve a crime. Though his belief that women are his equal seems a bit of an anachronism, Josse and the Abbess work so smoothly together, readers will give credence to his faith in the abilities of females. The Abbess is an enlightened thinker who is not afraid to dirty her hands by becoming involved in the secular affairs traditionally handled by males. These characters, a well designed who-done-it, and the pageantry of Medieval England turns Alys Clare's FORTUNE LIKE THE MOON into a fabulous historical mystery.Harriet Klausner