The widow's tale

Don't be discouraged by a confusing hawk-hunting scene introducing numerous characters at the start of Frazer's 14th Dame Frevisse mystery (after 2004's The Hunter's Tale), because what follows is a smooth and absorbing saga of conspiracy and treachery in 15th-century England. In 1449, landowner Edward Helyngton lies on his deathbed while his jealous cousin Laurence waits raptor-like to swoop down and seize his estate. Soon after Edward's demise, his widow, Cristiana, is banished to St. Frideswide's nunnery, where she's forced to do penance face down on the cold chapel floor for unspecified sins alleged by Laurence's agents. Living on bread and water, the embittered Cristiana eventually tells her sad tale to Dame Frevisse, who is at first only a sympathetic listener, but later takes a more active sleuthing role. A tantalizing secret confided to Cristiana by her dying husband turns out to have stunning political implications. The suspense builds steadily toward a visit from King Henry VI in this well-wrought tale involving murder, treason and "layers of ambition and betrayal." Agent, Nancy Yost. (Jan. 5) FYI: A two-time Edgar nominee, Frazer is also the author of A Play of Isaac (2004), the first in a new medieval mystery series. "Margaret Frazer" is the pseudonym of Gail Frazer, who collaborated with Mary Pulver Kuhfeld on the first six books in the series. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

When a distraught young woman is left in the care of the nuns of St. Frideside's priory, Dame Frevisse (The Bastard's Tale, 2003, etc.) becomes embroiled in family intrigue too close to the royal court for comfort. Cristiana Helyngton's life with her beloved husband Edward, a gentlemen of King Henry VI's court, and her two daughters is marred only by Edward's envious cousin Laurence. Upon Edward's death, Laurence insists on marrying one of his sons to Cristiana's daughter Mary in order to gain control of Edward's estate. He succeeds in taking custody of the estate and Cristiana's two girls by stashing the grief-stricken widow in Dame Frevisse's priory, where her brother Gerveys can't find her, under the pretense that she's crazy and immoral. But she has one resource: an inflammatory piece of evidence against the King and the powerful Duke of Suffolk that Edward left his wife and brother-in-law to use as protection after his death. When Dame Frevisse and her prioress accompany the widow on her return to Laurence, Frevisse uses her shrewdness and her relationship to her cousin, Duchess of Suffolk, to protect Cristiana from a killer who might possibly want that same piece of evidence. Cristiana's plight gets lost in the froth of courtly intrigue that ends in a revenge tragedy appropriate to a later period. Still, the interactions of Frevisse and her cousin make for compelling contrasts. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.