Susanna Gregory’s series featuring physician Matthew Bartholomew just keeps getting better and better. In the fifth book of the series, A Wicked Deed, Gregory makes some significant changes to the life at the university in Cambridge in the year 1353. As in her previous works, the specter of the plague looms in the background like a stalker hiding in the shadows ready to pounce on an already devastated Europe.
Matthew is part of an entourage that travels from Cambridge to the idyllic village of Grundisburgh, where a lord has promised a lucrative gift of the church to the university. On the way, they find a man hanging from a gibbet and he’s still alive. They cut him down but despite Matt’s valiant effort he dies. Then a wrong turn takes the group through Barchester, a small hamlet that has been abandoned after the Black Death claimed nearly all of its inhabitants. But the ghosts of the dead aren’t the only ones haunting the spooky village. A white dog prowls the woods and the locals in the surrounding communities are convinced that anyone who lays eyes on it will dies shortly after. Two villagers are already dead.
Once arriving at Grundisburgh, the benevolent lord Sir Thomas Tuddenham seems very eager that the deed turning the church over to Cambridge be completed as soon as possible. Almost immediately after arrival, the student-priest who is to become the church’s priest is found murdered.
All of a sudden, the beautiful peaceful serenity of Grundisburgh is surrounded by sinister forces and subterfuge, which are trying to delay the completion of the advowson. Cambridge Senior Proctor Richard Alcote does not appear to be in any rush to finish writing the document. Matt does not think that the greedy, opportunistic Alcote’s reasons are in the best interests of the University. More likely, he is trying to figure out how to line his own pockets.
Then a witness with a potential valuable clue to the murder is found with her throat cut. The primes suspect in both murders disappears. With one disaster after another, Matthew and his friar friend Michael are very eager to put as much distance between them and Grundisburgh as possible before they end up like Unwin, the murdered student-priest.
As with other historical writers, Gregory focuses on one or two interesting aspects of life during the time period of her work. It’s what helps keep the series fresh and from becoming monotonous or too similar. In A Wicked Deed, Matt meets de Stoate, a man with similar interests in medicine as he, and the landlord of the inn where the Cambridge entourage are staying. He is very proud of his own concoctions that he claims keeps the villagers healthy. Both men have very strong opinions about their abilities to heal people, formulate medicines and make scientific progress, much to Matthew’s horror. Gregory’s novel gives us a peek into the superstitions and alchemical environment and knowledge in the fourteenth century. Some of the recipes were described in disgustingly vivid details. Not only does Gregory bring the monastic living to life but also the gruesome reality of health care in the 1300’s. In the twenty-first century age of advanced medicine and sophisticated instrumentation, it’s a stark reminder of the difficulties the people of medieval times had to endure and the lengths they had to go through to try to warding off diseases and other maladies.
Gregory also spins a very complex plot that stymies Matt’s abilities, but he manages to unravel a twisted web of greed, lies and murder in the quaint village. It’s an intriguing story that’s difficult to put down.
Matthew is part of an entourage that travels from Cambridge to the idyllic village of Grundisburgh, where a lord has promised a lucrative gift of the church to the university. On the way, they find a man hanging from a gibbet and he’s still alive. They cut him down but despite Matt’s valiant effort he dies. Then a wrong turn takes the group through Barchester, a small hamlet that has been abandoned after the Black Death claimed nearly all of its inhabitants. But the ghosts of the dead aren’t the only ones haunting the spooky village. A white dog prowls the woods and the locals in the surrounding communities are convinced that anyone who lays eyes on it will dies shortly after. Two villagers are already dead.
Once arriving at Grundisburgh, the benevolent lord Sir Thomas Tuddenham seems very eager that the deed turning the church over to Cambridge be completed as soon as possible. Almost immediately after arrival, the student-priest who is to become the church’s priest is found murdered.
All of a sudden, the beautiful peaceful serenity of Grundisburgh is surrounded by sinister forces and subterfuge, which are trying to delay the completion of the advowson. Cambridge Senior Proctor Richard Alcote does not appear to be in any rush to finish writing the document. Matt does not think that the greedy, opportunistic Alcote’s reasons are in the best interests of the University. More likely, he is trying to figure out how to line his own pockets.
Then a witness with a potential valuable clue to the murder is found with her throat cut. The primes suspect in both murders disappears. With one disaster after another, Matthew and his friar friend Michael are very eager to put as much distance between them and Grundisburgh as possible before they end up like Unwin, the murdered student-priest.
As with other historical writers, Gregory focuses on one or two interesting aspects of life during the time period of her work. It’s what helps keep the series fresh and from becoming monotonous or too similar. In A Wicked Deed, Matt meets de Stoate, a man with similar interests in medicine as he, and the landlord of the inn where the Cambridge entourage are staying. He is very proud of his own concoctions that he claims keeps the villagers healthy. Both men have very strong opinions about their abilities to heal people, formulate medicines and make scientific progress, much to Matthew’s horror. Gregory’s novel gives us a peek into the superstitions and alchemical environment and knowledge in the fourteenth century. Some of the recipes were described in disgustingly vivid details. Not only does Gregory bring the monastic living to life but also the gruesome reality of health care in the 1300’s. In the twenty-first century age of advanced medicine and sophisticated instrumentation, it’s a stark reminder of the difficulties the people of medieval times had to endure and the lengths they had to go through to try to warding off diseases and other maladies.
Gregory also spins a very complex plot that stymies Matt’s abilities, but he manages to unravel a twisted web of greed, lies and murder in the quaint village. It’s an intriguing story that’s difficult to put down.
