Customer Reviews

The Mark of a Murderer (Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles)

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Pseudonymal Susanna Gregory launches us into her eleventh Matthew Bartholomew mystery with alacrity and yet again confounds her seasoned reader with a darkly convoluted tale that weaves in the fear of a rabid animal and the potential for riot with head scratching enigma. Gregory opens her prologue during a Scholastica Day riot in Oxford that leaves sity scholars dead and twice as many townspeople. All instigated by the dark monk.
Moving forward some months we find ourselves at Michaelhouse where Matthew is stealing out nightly to Mathilde's house and not being very inconspicuous about it. Being the gossip of the town doesn't sit well with our reflective sleuth and we quickly find Michael dragging him off to Merton Hall to investigate the stabbing of an Oxford scholar, Chesterfelde, one of a party of Oxford merchants and scholars who have left Oxford for a variety of reasons. Our suspect list builds quickly as Matthew discovers the real cause of death is a slashed wrist. In Michael's sights are Daurant (Matthew's Oxford teacher, a poppy juice addict), Polmorva (Matthew's sworn enemy from his Oxford days) and Spryngheuse (one of the monks involved in the early fight in Oxford that led to the riot). Aside from Chesterfelde, there was also Okehamptone who appears to have died from a fever en route. Accompanying them are three Oxford merchants, Wormynghalle, a tanner, Abergavenny, a burgess and Eu the spicer each tasked by Joan Goneral to find the murderer of her husband during the riots. His dying breath condemned a Cambridge scholar and they have come to seek his assailant. Throw into the mix the Merton Hall residents of Eudo, a tenant, and Boltone, bailiff of Merton Hall together with the impending visit of archbishop Islip to potentially found a new college and you have a heady brew of mystery in a political tinderbox.
Woven into the tale is King's Hall whose inhabitants of Wolfe, Norton, Hamescotes and Wormynghalle all take major supporting roles alongside the stationer Weasenham and his Langelee-loving wife, Alyce. The other Cambridge physicians take a large role here, particularly with Rougham having been attacked by the mysterious wolf and Clippesby is given a greater starring role as he acts as a useful witness whose mildly insane method of reporting confounds and exasperates us all.
By the end the riot is staved off, hell hath no fury like a woman denied her right to study and Matthew intends to marry Mathilde. It ends on a slightly sour note as our hero trots off to propose whilst she's heading out of the gate thinking he'll never get round to it. I do hope Gregory sorts it out as she's created a character that any fan of the series will have invested an emotional interest in plus it'll be interesting to see how she can keep them together and not have Matt renounce his career.
We'll see.
What makes Gregory all the more plausible is the rich historical note where she details that the major events really occurred and characters are all based on real personages. It makes it even more impressive.
This is one author at the height of her literary powers and needs far more exposure to the public than she gets at the moment.
Read it.

This eleventh book in the Matthew Bartholomew series is a real page-turner. I have been enjoying reading this series for a number of years now, and look forward to each new installment. Ms. Gregory writes in a complex and vivid manner that demonstrates her intimate knowledge with the time frame that she is writing in, while treating her readers to wonderful characters, tightly knit plots and intricate murders and murderers. This book uses the historcal Oxford riots of 1355 to build a story around. Everyone in Cambridge is aware of the devastating riots in Oxford, and they want to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen in their city. Especially because they are planning for a celebratory visitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury. But people keep turning up dead and Michael and Matthew are hard-pressed to sort it all out in time. This is another totally satisfying medieval mystery. Bring on the next one.

This is an excellent story for anyone who likes a traditional 'whodunnit' well-written, with deftly-drawn characters and a real sense of place. Set in a damp, isolated Cambridge which is vividly portrayed, the scholarship and period knowledge is fascinating but never intrusive.

This is the eleventh story to feature Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael in mediaeval Cambridge. Although it isn't necessary to read them in order, it's probably better to have read a couple of others first for the ending to have its intended effect.

I now have to wait nearly a year before the sequel comes out in hardback! Highly recommended.

This book was read by Andrew Wincott, a British actor on stage, television and radio. He has a nice flexible voice and handles the various characters in this book with ease. It wasn't his fault that I ended this book feeling vaguely dissatisfied because I've had this problem with other books in this series by this author.

While I feel that the author, Susanna Gregory, has a fairly reliable grasp of Cambridge history the plot seemed to rely overly on coincidence. And sometimes she shows then tells again as though the reader might not be relied upon to catch on without one of the characters explaining things to us.

For instance, the portly Brother Michael, Proctor, has been eating too much. Matthew, the doctor, encourages him to eat less for the sake of his health. Matthew also muses to himself that if he were involved in a fracas where Michael was his backup while they were solving a crime that Michael might not be able come to his aid if Michael was too overweight. So of course a fracas occurs and Michael cannot come to his aid. Next thing we know Michael is cutting down on his food intake. Enough said, right? No, Matthew has to muse to himself again that Michael is dieting in because he found out that he would not be able to help his friend if he were too much overweight.

When the plot isn't being driven by coincidence it's being pushed by Matthew's not very good judgment when it comes to the character of others.

It probably sounds like I do not like this book, but that is not true. I did enjoy the 16 or so hours I spent in 14th century Cambridge but I wish Ms Gregory would hone her mystery skills a bit to equal her historical skills.

As always, Gregory's stories are generally interesting. However, an economy of words would often help at times so that the story line does not become overly tedious. Yet, I always come back for more as I like the good
doctor and his cohort.

I am an admirer of Gregory's Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew series but this one falls short of her usual standard. The historical background to the story is, as one expects from this author, well researched and written about with authority. The basic plot centres on a riot in Oxford after which a number of scholars flee to Cambridge. Along with them go a small group of men from the town who are investigating a murder that took place during the rioting.
At the same time there is a subplot centred on a Cambridge lecturer who appears to be manifesting symptoms of insanity. A local prostitute with whom Matthew has become overly familiar, at least to those who do not know what they are really doing, has a part to play in the mystery. As do two men associated with an Oxford owned manor in Cambridge. Then there is an old feud plus an old friend now so altered by time and age that Matthew wonders if he was mistaken in his admiration as a youth, bodies galore and a plot that gets more and more entangled as the story progresses.
The plot plods along as Matthew and Michael discover body after body until the lists of corpses and suspects reaches an almost ridiculous length. The solving of the crime is more likely to be done by the reader well before the end of the book simply because of the repetition of the main clue to the point where the reader may well wonder why the editor of the book did not call a halt to its appearance.
In the end the murderers are exposed and the corpses buried while the Archbishop of Canterbury starts his visit to the town. A neat but not very satisfying ending left me hoping that the next book from Miss Gregory will be more like the others in the series.

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.

I am not sure whether it is Matthew Bartholomew himself, or the setting of Cambridge in the mid-fourteenth century but Miss Gregory's books seem to carry an aura all of their own. Certainly for me and hopefully for other readers as well.

It is St. Scholastic's and Oxford is embroiled in one of the most serious riots in it history. Fearing for their lives many of the scholars flee from the city, some choosing to travel to Cambridge in the belief that the murderer of one of their colleagues may well be found in town that rival them for scholastic endeavour.

Brother Michael is furious that anyone else should try to search for the killer and is dismissive of the insistence of these upstarts that Cambridge is harbouring the murderer.

He is also annoyed that Matthew Bartholomew appears to more interested in the town's leading prostitute than the murder that has taken place.

It eventually becomes clear that the riot was not a case of random violence but part of a carefully orchestrated plot . . .