The bastard's tale

While the slow unfolding of the plot and the shortage of crime solving may put off some readers, anyone who values high historical drama will feel amply rewarded by Edgar-nominee Frazer's latest Dame Frevisse mystery (The Clerk's Tale, etc.). In 1447 the powerful men of England gather in the town of Bury St. Edmond's for a session of Parliament. However, a few nobles have decided that this particular session will not see business as usual. The bishop of Winchester summons Dame Frevisse from her nunnery to go to Bury St. Edmonds and report to him all that she sees and hears. With the aid of an old friend, the player Joliffe, and new friends Bishop Pecock of St. Asaph's and Arteys, the duke of Gloucester's illegitimate son, she uncovers a political plot of treason and murder. Arteys stands out as one of several historical figures in the story who become fully human. Despite his tenuous position as a bastard, he genuinely loves and admires his father. Also of note is the poignant and amusing relationship between Joliffe and Dame Frevisse. History fans will relish every minute they spend with the characters in this powerfully created medieval world. Prose that at times verges on the poetic is another plus, as is the inviting jacket art depicting a river flowing through a town of thatched-roof houses. (Jan. 7) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Ever since Henry VI was an infant, his relatives and successors-apparent have been jockeying for power in the realm, and now that it's 1447, the 25th anniversary of his reign, nothing has changed. Henry's uncle, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, who'd retired to Wales for health reasons after his wife was imprisoned five years ago, has been summoned to a session of Parliament in Bury St. Edmonds, where he has reason to believe at least one of his longtime rivals, Bishop Henry Beaufort of Winchester and the Marquise of Suffolk, will be waiting for him with hired knives drawn. As the session looms, Frazer focuses on two outsiders even further from royal power than the Duke: Arteys FitzGloucester, his beloved bastard son, who's accompanied his father despite his misgivings about the journey, and the indispensable Dame Frevisse, the Benedictine nun of St. Frideswide (The Clerk's Tale, 2002, etc.), attending her cousin Alice, Suffolk's wife. Fears of perfidy prove well founded when Suffolk, who's spread the rumor that Gloucester is advancing on the town with an army, has him arrested for treason, and things go from bad to worse when Arteys, secretly visiting the ailing prisoner, catches someone trying to murder him, kills the killer in turn, and then can't imagine how he'll escape Suffolk's revenge--unless Frevisse turns up with a well-timed stratagem for setting him free. No pretense of mystery, and not much suspense either, though Frazer executes her exercise--inserting Frevisse into a dramatic episode in 15th-century history--with audacity and ingenuity. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.