The reeve's tale

Here's the latest excellent installment in Frazer's superbly researched medieval mystery series featuring Dame Frevisse, a nun of the order of St. Frideswide, who, along with her godly duties, relishes the occasional opportunity for amateur sleuthing. In her ninth outing (after The Maiden's Tale), Frevisse is ordered to temporarily take over the duties of Master Naylor, the convent's steward. She finds herself in the middle of a land dispute when Matthew Woderove, a convent serf, is found dead and his widow, Mary, along with her new beau, Tom Holcote, tries to claim his land rights. Disputing the claim is wealthy villein Gilbey Dunn, who wants to add to his hefty holdings. The argument is quickly set aside when Matthew's death turns out to be murder and most of the village children come down with sometimesfatal cases of measles. Aided by a neighboring reeve, Simon Perryn, whose own children are among the sick, Frevisse seeks to untangle the roots of the crime, which grow to claim a second murder victim. Exquisitely written, the novel offers a brilliantly realized vision of a typical medieval English village, peopled with full-blooded men and women who experience the human range of joys and sorrows. Suspenseful from start to surprising conclusion, this is another gem from an author who's twice been nominated for an Edgar. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Landholdings in the village of Prior Byfield belong either to the St. Frideswide nunnery or to Lord Lovell. Simon Perryn acts as Lovell's agent (or reeve) in village matters, while Master Naylor represents the nunnery. Here, however, Sister Frevisse subs for Naylor. Unfortunately for her, two similar murders stem from arguments over who will control certain parcels of land--one unpopular rich man or others less fortunate. When circumstantial evidence points to Simon as the suspected killer, Sister Frevisse intervenes. Fans of historicals will love the passionate attention to detail in character, custom, and setting, and the sympathetic creation of believable people and events. This is the first in the popular medieval series to be published in hardcover. Essential. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

For her hardcover debut, Edgar-nominated Sister Frevisse , previously mentored by her uncle, Geoffrey Chaucer's son, steps outside a cozy 15th-century convent into her toughest performance to date. Frevisse's logical mind and worldly experience dictate that she represent St. Frideswide's cloistered nuns when their steward, Master Naylor, is confined by a challenge to his status as freeborn. Once away from her prayers, Frevisse unhappily finds herself in the village court partnered with Simon Perryn, Lord Lovell's reeve, unraveling agricultural disputes between the priory's and the lord's villeins when a measles epidemic insures her quarantine outside the convent. Two land-lease decisions made in favor of the wealthy, detested Gilbey Dunn and against men in the reeve's sister's life--her ineffectual husband, Matthew Woderove, and her fiery paramour, Tom Hulcote'seem to result in their immediate deaths. When Frevisse's longtime nemesis, corrupt royal crowner Master Montfort, suspects Perryn and Dunn as the culprits, Frevisse seizes her cue to go into action. The contemplative sister, lacking evidence and needing a confession to expose sin, turns especially hard-boiled to entrap the especially cold-blooded. Frazer dawdles in turning the screw of the mystery, but the looming threats guarantee suspense in this glimpse of agricultural economics in 1440s England. Greed and self-interest lurk beneath marital agreements knotted to land contracts, reminding God's virgins just who feeds them. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.