Customer Reviews

A Killer in Winter (Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles)

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The excellent pseudonymal Susanna Gregory returns with her ninth installment of the Matthew Bartholomew chronicles and doesn't disappoint. From the prologue where the messenger Josse's accidental death turns out to be a boon for someone and the death of Norbert, laconic brother of the now retired Sheriff of Cambridge's, Richard Tulet, Gregory settles into her latest mystery with effortless ease, instantly creating a a tuly piscine tale with both plot and scene with that easy familiarity that is her hallmark.
We plunge into a humorous opening with Michael's ridiculous attempts to spy on a Cambridge newcomer, Harysone, based on personal dislike and demanding Matthew declare the man's insanity without actually meeting him before swiftly finding another corpse in Michaelhouse's church. The anticipation of the coming Christmas means that Michael is forced to choose which murder to investigate first and Bartholomew's life is complicated by the return of his once-betrothed - Phillipa Abigny.
Phillipa is drastically changed from the woman who left him to marry the fishmonger and Mayor of London-desiree, Turke and both she and her brother, Giles Abigny arrive to stay at Edith and Stanmore's house.
Murder and mayhem swiftly follow as Christmas sets in, Michaelhouse electing Deynham its twelve day Lord of Misrule. Unlike in Gregory's previous offering up at Ely, the murdered body count is low this time (though the eventual tally is high after it turns out everyone was culpable to some degree and ends up dying to tie up all the loose ends). There is Norbert, the dead `beggar' in St Michael's is discovered to be Gosslinge, Turke's servant and Turke himself dies suspiciously after literally skating on thin ice. Gregory kills off the old rivermen from preceding novels, Aethelbad and Dunstan as the harsh winter takes its toll (there's more snow that Cambridge has ever seen since!) and we unravel more of the shadowy political dealings that weave through Cambridge.
Amongst it all runs the mysterious Dympna, a charitable organisation that ends up having a sideline, the Chepe Waits (comprising Frith, Makejoy, Jestyn and Dyna) a travelling band of thieving jugglers, the newly arrived and dislikeable Quenhyth, Sheriff Morice's corruption and a game of camp ball (ancient football). Ovying hostel gets a thorough runout with its head, Ailred. All of which has both Matthew and Michael scratching their heads at all the clues but unable to make sense of the sequence of events. The key to it all, in a delightful piece of murder mystery irony, is the Fraternity of fishmen and the protagonists relationships to each other.
So, by the time Matthew ends up in a barn having a particularly nasty hayfork jabbed at him during his attempt to free both Michael and Kenyngham we have had a double denouement, the lengthy first answering most of the questions but not all, the second culminating in the fight and the final two culprits racing off with the charitable gold and falling into the icy river. At the end the body count is high (though most of them are a grim justice), Matthew's relationship with Phillipa is resolved (we get the hint somewhat to Mathilde's relief) and the twelve day debacle provides levity throughout.
Right now, there is no better historical murder writer out there. Gregory's style, prose, plot and descriptive writing makes fourteenth century Cambridge immensely plausible, her characters are well crafted and empathic and, above all, the reader is left craving more. A truly fishy tale has been created here and Gregory has done nothing to make her audience even want her to lay down her pen. An author at the height of her literary powers.

It's been too long since I read a Susanna Gregory Matthew Bartholomew book. She is my favourite medieval author out there, and as I read this book I remembered why. Her books are long, and there is a lot of detail, but it doesn't seem that they get too bogged down because everything she writes is in aid of her plots. This book has the best description of a medieval Christmas celebration, and a medieval winter that I've ever read, and believe me I've read a lot of medievals. In this book Matthew and Brother Michael are faced with a number of deaths, and only one of the three appears to be an actual murder, but they seem to strangely be connected in some way. Though how could one of Cambridge's students, and two seemingly unrelated strangers have anything in common is beyond them for some time. So now they have to try to find the murderer and they are doing it at the worst possible time. Cambridge is gripped in the coldest winter they've ever experienced and it is Christmas time as well. They set out to unmask a murderer and as they do that, we the readers meet a wonderful cast of characters. Come along for the ride and be a part of a Cambridge Christmas in 1354. Ms. Gregory's books are so real that you WILL feel like you're there.

Susanna Gregory is not as prolific a writer as many of the authors who write this style of book and the anticipation of waiting for a new title can be quite frustrating for the reader. However the wait is always worthwhile.

Her choice of Cambridge as the main backdrop to her books is inspired. It seems to lull the reader into a world of spires and colleges inhabited by the students and academics who teach there. There is also always the underground rumblings of the inhabitants of the city who are constantly at loggerheads with the colleges and hate the students intensely, thinking of them as nothing more than thugs and bully boys.

Christmas is coming and while Matthew Bartholomew's colleagues in the Cambridge colleges are preparing for the festivities, Matthew in his role of physician is struggling to help the poorer citizens through one of the worst winters in living memory.

Matthew however, is given a brief respite from his duties when Brother Michael calls on him to identify a man found dead, probably from the freezing cold in one of the churches. The victim is servant to the husband of Matthew's lost love Philippa. Later, the husband himself is the victim of a tragic accident on treacherous ice. Or, perhaps the death is not the accident everyone supposes it to be . . .

Susanna Gregory has a well proven formula and she sticks to it. Her books are well written, well researched and most of all they are enjoyable to read. I love them.

I was really disappointed by "A Killer in Winter". It was confusing and dull, and that's really not what I expect from Susanna Gregory.
In December 1354 it's unseasonably cold in Cambridge, it's Christmas time, and there's more than the weather to worry about. Between slimy men looking to sell their treatises on fish, dead bodies in the church, dead bodies in the street, Rob Deynman being elected King of Misrule and a very dodgy band of entertainers, what are Matthew and Michael to do? Life is not easy in Michaelhouse as Matthew Bartholomew, Doctor of Medicine, and Michael, Senior Proctor and theologian, try to solve mysteries and prevent the university students from getting out of hand at this difficult time of year.
I think it's past time Gregory's editor came down very hard on her. If she had stripped out some of the elements of the story and concentrated instead on prose and character, this could have been a much better book. As it is, it's overloaded with characters and elements, many of whom/which appear to no good purpose. What was the point of Sheriff Morice, misrule, Grey and Deynman, Harysone's book and strange dancing, etc etc ad nauseam, if they are not to play any integral part in the plot? Philippa and Giles are the supreme example of this. For the part they played in the story and the effect their reappearance had on Matthew, they could have been anyone. Other elements just did not fit. Why had no-one heard of Dympna before? The continual hostages dramas of the ending were frankly ridiculous. And please deal with Matthew's love life. Is he with Matilde or isn't he? When is that finally going to be sorted out?
All the characters have the same "voice", and there is too much telling and not enough showing where they're concerned. They change to fit the needs of the plot, too. Why are Stanmore and Langelee such wimps all of a sudden? How is Philippa (who can be no older than twenty-five) now middle-aged, without independent means of her own, and totally different in character? How is Giles now a former student colleague of Matthew's, rather than a former Fellow of Michaelhouse? Gregory's prose needs more life and variety in it, a bit more scene-setting. "A Killer in Winter" is like having a single light in a dark room - whatever you can't see right now doesn't exist.
I really hope the next book is more fun and better quality than this one - the way they used to be.

Gregory always weaves a good story of murder in the dark ages. ANd it was fun to read about Cambridge hundreds of years before I was there.

This is such an odd book. I've read all the Matthew Bartholomew books and enjoyed them a lot but this one has such a disconnect from the others that it seems that the author either has forgotten much that happened in previous books and seems to be reminding herself from notes of certain things or for some reason feels compelled to go over a lot of ground already covered. The character of Thomas Suttone appeared in "A Masterly Murder" but was killed off and now reappears with a completely different persona. The book is rambling and very off kilter. It's always easy to spot Gregory's villians because they are always the nicest, salt-of-the-earth types who turn out to be cold blooded killers. The fun is trying to figure out the motives which are often so convoluted that much time is spent explaining them. One wonders how Bartholomew and Brother Michael manage to figure them out since throughout most of the books they are almost willfully obtuse! The best part of the series is the historical aspect but this time Gregory seems to be trying too hard. She spends a lot of time explaining clothing which is unusual for her. It's almost as if she came across a book of costume and decided that she should be more descriptive regarding what her medieval characters are wearing. Just an odd and very perplexing book. Not up to standard, really. Too many mysteries in just one book.