The good death

The fifth in the Somershill Manor mysteries, which follow the investigations of a Kentish lord in the mid-fourteenth century, centers on one young girl's death and the disappearances and possible murders of five other girls from the same poverty-stricken village. This mystery is a deathbed confession--in 1360, a guilt-ridden Lord Oswald de Lacey tells his dying mother about what he did as a probationary monk in 1349. The 18-year-old Oswald, then a novice monk (his father's and brothers' deaths soon made him Lord Oswald), decided on his own to investigate the girls' disappearances, ignoring his superiors' orders and the threat of the Black Death, which had just reached England the year before. While the medieval and monastic background is absorbing, it's a bit of a stretch to believe that the novice monk could actually do so much sleuthing on his own. Recommended for fans of the series, who may also want to check out Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael mysteries, set in twelfth-century England and also starring a very canny monk.

In Sykes's superior fifth mystery featuring Oswald de Lacy (after 2019's The Bone Fire), the action alternates between 1349, when the 18-year-old de Lacy was a novice at Kintham Abbey, and 1370, when de Lacy, now Lord Somershill, shares secrets from the past with his dying mother to get her forgiveness. At Kintham Abbey, while on an errand to collect herbs, he spots teenager Agnes Wheeler, who helps with the monastery's laundry, hiding in a bush. Agnes is terrified, and flees into a river, warning "Keep away from me, priest!" before the current sweeps her away, drowning her. When de Lacy retrieves the body, he finds marks of violence on it, including rope abrasions. Blaming himself for scaring Agnes into her fatal flight, he resolves to identify her assailant, who may have also been responsible for the disappearances of several other girls. That task becomes more complex after he learns the truth about Agnes's parentage. The framing device increases suspense, and the author's inventiveness and gift for description serves to deepen an already nuanced lead. Sykes solidifies her standing as a preeminent historical whodunit writer. Agent: Deborah Schneider, ICM Partners. (Sept.)