Book Review - The Reeve's Tale by Margaret Frazer

 

 

Silly me.  In the beginning of The Reeve’s Tale, the ninth in Frazer’s Dame Frevisse series.  St. Frideswide’s reeve, Master Naylor’s freeman status is called into question and is temporarily relieved of his duties until the matter can be resolved.  Domina Elisabeth charges Frevisse to assume his duties as reeve until that time.  I thought Frazer had run out of ideas to get Dame Frevisse out of the convent and into the secular world where her sleuthing abilities are needed.

I underestimated Frazer’s creativity, since nothing in her novels is superfluous. 

Although Frevisse spends most of her time in the confines of St. Frideswide, she is not uninformed about the world outside the cloister.  Almost from the moment she takes on Master Naylor’s duties, she becomes involved in a land dispute over a tract up for grabs.  One contender a wealthy man with a Midas touch and therefore not well-liked.  The other is the brother-in-law of the village’s reeve, Master Perryn, Naylor’s counterpart.

Mary Woderove, Perryn’s sister and Matthew’s wife, has the disposition of a rabid wolverine. It’s no surprise to the village when Matthew disappears and nobody is grieving when his body is discovered a few days later, miles away. Not even Mary who turns to her paramour for comfort. And to take up her cause for the tract of land.

But things don’t go in her favor and soon her lover is killed.  Frevisse and Master Perry struggle to find out who hated the two men few people even cared for, less kill them. Although unpopular, neither man was hated.

The king’s crowner, Thornton, shows up in his boisterous manner, more interested in lining his pockets than finding the truth.  As before, he and Frevisse clash but this time she finds an ally in Thornton’s son.   He’s not like his father and is eager to find the truth, as much as Frevisse does. 

The Reeve’s Tale is the first novel that I found to be an actual page-turner, not that the others were not, but during the Reeve’s climax, Frevisse takes Mary head-on with an anger and coldness she hasn’t exhibited before. It was interesting and exciting to see Frevisse shed her nun’s habit, so to speak, and bring out the claws!