The Plymouth Cloak (A Roger the Chapman Medieval Mystery)

The Author Kate Sedley was born in Bristol and it is probably no coincidence that the majority of the Roger Chapman books take place in and around the Bristol area. Kate was educated at the Red Maid's School in Westbury-on-Trym. She is married and has a son and a daughter. Kate Sedley's books about Roger Chapman, the pedlar come murder mystery sleuth are becoming more and more popular and rightly so. They are good entertaining reading with plots and backgrounds that have been well thought out and well researched. They are what I would call light reading (very much like the writing style of Paul Doherty or Bernard Knight, two other well known authors of medieval mysteries). This book is the second on the series. Roger the Chapman, by his deeds has become known to members of the Royal Household, an honour he is not sure he warrants, or desires for that matter. Nonetheless he is commanded to escort a messenger of the King, who is carrying a vital despatch to a ship berthed in Plymouth. When the messenger is murdered, Roger is astounded to find out that he himself is the chief suspect and becomes drawn in to a world of sin and political double dealings.

Set in 1473, two years after the series' premiere "Death and the Chapman", we find Roger the Chapman contentedly travelling through the English countryside peddling his wares. When Roger reaches the city of Exeter, though, he is unexpectedly summoned to visit Duke Richard of Gloucester, younger brother of then-king Edward IV. In an effort to keep the fragile peace between the English houses of York and Lancaster, Duke Richard has written a secret letter to Duke Francis of Brittany, pleading for his help in quelling a possible invasion of England. Roger's part in this plot is to serve as bodyguard to Richard's royal messenger, Philip Underdown, and to accompany Philip from Exeter to the port of Plymouth. As Duke Richard tells Roger when giving him this quest, the journey to Plymouth is only two days, and Roger need only stay with Philip until he is safely aboard the Brittany-bound ship. Of course, Philip Underdown turns out to be a man of questionable character with many enemies. Before becoming a royal messenger, Philip made his living as a ship captain, specializing in supplying dwarves to various countries. Apparently, in this time period, dwarves were in high demand as royal servants. Roger's commission to see Philip safely to Plymouth becomes much more difficult when an uprising in the north of England delays the arrival of the ship in Plymouth. Philip suggests that the two leave Plymouth for the nearby Cornish manor of Trenowth, where Philip is friends of the manor family. But it seems that Philip's enemies follow him even to Cornwall, and when Philip is brutally murdered, Roger is determined to find the murderer and deliver Richard's secret letter to Brittany himself. Author Sedley does a wonderful job of re-creating the world of late 15th-century England. The setting of this series is a large part of the pleasure of these books. The outcome of this story was quite surprising, and one that I did not guess at. Fans of historical mysteries and previous readers of the Roger the Chapman series will thoroughly enjoy this story. "The Plymouth Cloak" stand well on its own merits, and it is definitely not necessary to have read "Death and the Chapman" to fully enjoy this story.