Mystery In The Minster

Author: Susanna Gregory
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0748126058
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
For the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Matthew Bartholomew series, Sphere is delighted to reissue all of the medieval monk's cases with beautiful new series-style covers. ------------------------------------ The seventeenth chronicle in the Matthew Bartholomew series. In 1358 the fledging college of Michaelhouse in Cambridge is in need of extra funds. A legacy from the Archbishop of York of a parish close to that city promises a welcome source of income. However, there has been another claim to its ownership and it seems the only way to settle the dispute is for a deputation from Michaelhouse to travel north. Matthew Bartholomew is among the small party which arrives in the bustling city, where the increasing wealth of the merchants is unsettling the established order, and where a French invasion is an ever-present threat to its port. But soon he and his colleagues learn that many of the Archbishop's executors have died in unexplained circumstances and that the codicil naming Michaelhouse as a beneficiary cannot be found... 'A first-rate treat for mystery lovers' (Historical Novels Review) 'Susanna Gregory has an extraordinary ability to conjure up a strong sense of time and place' (Choice)

Murder at Elmstow Minster

Author: Lindsay Jacob
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1800462441
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
It is the 830s; a time of warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, declining monastic standards and outbursts of fear of divine retribution. Elmstow Minster – a community of nuns in the Kingdom of the East Angles – has been recently established to atone for the execution of a young prince. The minster is torn between two camps – pious nuns and those who have no intention of giving up their worldly ways. These ungodly women are supported by powerful, degenerate donors, who treat Elmstow as an aristocratic whoring nest. The abbess of Elmstow has been humiliated by the influence wielded over her minster by these rich patrons and plots revenge. Two naked bodies are discovered, hanged together. A young, introspective priest, Father Eadred, is sent to Elmstow to spy on the declining standards and against his wishes becomes entangled in the task of uncovering the guilty. He challenges the traditional approach of using an ordeal of hot iron to identify the culprits. Instead, he has the novel idea of exploring the evidence. He faces significant opposition, including an attempt on his life. Eadred is befriended by a hermit monk who becomes the only person with whom he can talk about his detection. Further murders will take place. As Eadred moves closer to the truth the situation is thrown into further disarray when the minster is attacked by the neighbouring kingdom. Can they be saved and the final culprit revealed?

Murder by the Minster

Author: Helen Cox
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1529402220
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
Meet Kitt Hartley: librarian, trilby-wearer, taker of no nonsense... detective? It's a perfectly normal day for Kitt Hartley at her job at the University of the Vale of York library, until Detective Inspector Halloran arrives at her desk to tell her that her best friend, Evie Bowes, is under suspicion of murder. Evie's ex-boyfriend Owen has been found dead - with a fountain pen stabbed through his heart - and all the evidence points to her. Kitt knows there is no way Evie could murder anyone - let alone Owen, who she adored. Horrified that the police could have got it so wrong, Kitt decides there's only one thing to do: she's going to investigate Owen's murder herself. She's read hundreds of mystery novels - how hard can it be? With the help of her assistant Grace, and the occasional hindrance of the library's eccentric regulars, Kitt summons up all her investigative powers (absorbed over years of reading everything from Agatha Christie to Ian Rankin) and gets to work. She soon discovers that down the quaint streets and snickelways of York lie darker doings than she'd ever dreamed, but she needs to watch her step: the murderer is watching her. And they haven't finished killing yet... 'Utterly fascinating and highly entertaining' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review 'I loved this book so much' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review 'I felt as though I was right by Kitt's side helping her solve the mystery' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review 'Perfect' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review 'Brilliant' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review 'One of my favourite series' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review 'Absorbing and brilliant' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reader review

The Midwife's Tale

Author: Sam Thomas
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250010772
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
In the tradition of Arianna Franklin and C. J. Sansom comes Samuel Thomas's remarkable debut, The Midwife's Tale It is 1644, and Parliament's armies have risen against the King and laid siege to the city of York. Even as the city suffers at the rebels' hands, midwife Bridget Hodgson becomes embroiled in a different sort of rebellion. One of Bridget's friends, Esther Cooper, has been convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to be burnt alive. Convinced that her friend is innocent, Bridget sets out to find the real killer. Bridget joins forces with Martha Hawkins, a servant who's far more skilled with a knife than any respectable woman ought to be. To save Esther from the stake, they must dodge rebel artillery, confront a murderous figure from Martha's past, and capture a brutal killer who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. The investigation takes Bridget and Martha from the homes of the city's most powerful families to the alleyways of its poorest neighborhoods. As they delve into the life of Esther's murdered husband, they discover that his ostentatious Puritanism hid a deeply sinister secret life, and that far too often tyranny and treason go hand in hand.

The York Mystery Plays

Author: Mike Poulton
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
ISBN: 9781848425385
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This new version by Mike Poulton was first performed in York Minster in 2016, with a vast community cast.

The Killer Of Pilgrims

Author: Susanna Gregory
Publisher: Sphere
ISBN: 0748124519
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
The sixteenth chronicle in the Matthew Bartholomew series. When a wealthy benefactor is found dead in Michaelhouse, Brother Michael and Matthew Bartholomew must find the culprit before the College is accused of foul play. At the same time, Cambridge is plagued by a mystery thief, who is targeting rich pilgrims. Moreover, pranksters are at large in the University, staging a series of practical jokes that are growing increasingly dangerous, and that are dividing scholars into bitterly opposed factions. Bartholomew and Michael soon learn that their various mysteries are connected, and it becomes a race against time to catch the killer-thief before the University explodes into a violent conflict that could destroy it forever. 'A first-rate treat for mystery lovers' (Historical Novels Review) 'Susanna Gregory has an extraordinary ability to conjure up a strong sense of time and place' (Choice)

The Butchered Man

Author: Harriet Smart
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781906236793
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
England, 1840. Police surgeon Felix Carswell enters a murky world of professional gamblers and jilted lovers to solve the case of the Butchered Man.

Crow Court

Author: Andy Charman
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783529113
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2021 'Clever, elegantly constructed, utterly convincing' Daily Mail 'As gripping as Hilary Mantel and as convincing as Sarah Perry ... debut novels shouldn't be this perfectly formed' Ben Myers 'Clever, page-turning, original ... beautifully written' Jane Harris 'Exactly observed, densely textured and richly flavoured ... Crow Court is throbbing with life' Rick Gekoski Spring, 1840. In the Dorset market town of Wimborne Minster, a young choirboy drowns himself. Soon after, the choirmaster—a belligerent man with a vicious reputation—is found murdered, in a discovery tainted as much by relief as it is by suspicion. The gaze of the magistrates falls on four local men, whose decisions will reverberate through the community for years to come. So begins the chronicle of Crow Court, unravelling over fourteen delicately interwoven episodes, the town of Wimborne their backdrop: a young gentleman and his groom run off to join the army; a sleepwalking cordwainer wakes on his wife’s grave; desperate farmhands emigrate. We meet the composer with writer’s block; the smuggler; a troupe of actors down from London; and old Art Pugh, whose impoverished life has made him hard to amuse. Meanwhile, justice waits...

The Chancellor's Secret

Author: Susanna Gregory
Publisher: Sphere
ISBN: 0751579475
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
In 1360, the Great Bridge over the River Cam is close to collapse. To repair it will cost the town and the University dear, especially if its rotten wood is replaced by more durable stone. As arguments rage over raising the money other, equally heated, differences are coming to the boil over the election of a new Chancellor. While the majority support Brother Michael for the post, at least one of his opponents aims to seize it by fair means or foul. Then the discovery of a body under the bridge and the disappearance of two scholars throws a more sinister shadow over both disputes. Matthew Bartholomew, the University's Corpse Examiner, already has his hands full: due to marry in under a fortnight, he is determined to conclude his teaching duties and deal with an outbreak of the summer flux before relinquishing his official duties. With more deaths, an 'accident' at the bridge and an increasing stench of corruption over the financing of the bridge's repairs, he realises he owes more to his soon-to-be former colleagues than to his future life as a secular doctor. But will there be enough time for him to unveil the identities of those who seek to undermine both the town and the University, or will he prove powerless to protect those he loves from death or disgrace or worse?

Septimus and the Minster Ghost

Author: Stephen Chance
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571244355
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
The strange events begin with the breathless tale of a mysterious light shining from inside the Minster. Added to reports of ghostly organ music and a piercing scream heard at the dead of night, and the Dean of the Minster has good reason to contact Reverend Septimus Treloar, once a Chief Inspector in the CID. A bad dream, he decides. But before long the mystery deepens with the rumoured return of the ghost of an eighteenth-century organist. Could he have come back from the dead to haunt the Minster? Or will Septimus be able to use his policeman's nous once more to find the villain at the root of it all? Septimus and the Minster Ghost is the second of Stephen Chance's hugely popular Septimus detective mysteries. First published in 1972, it again combines echoes of Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, with the author's own characteristic wit and eccentricity.