Customer Reviews

A Shrine of Murders: Being the First of the Canterbury Tales of Kathryn Swinbrooke, Leech, and Physician

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I quite enjoyed this. Although there were anachronisms aplenty, it is true that there were women physicians during this time. The clues were fairly obvious, but the use of herbology, use of Chaucer's poems and the position of women during the time was very interesting. The characters were good, particularly Kathryn's servant Thomasina and I didn't mind either the secondary plot or the budding romance between Kathryn and Colum. It's a light, quick read good for a Sunday afternoon.

It is the late fifteenth century and someone is poisoning pilgrims to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. Before each murder, a note with a clue in verse is pinned to the cathedral door. The authorities want the murders stopped since the pilgrim trade is very lucrative. They need someone familiar with poisons so they request the assistance of Kathryn Swinbrooke, apothecary and doctor. She is not under suspicion since, by all the witnesses' accounts, the murderer is a man. To assist Mistress Swinbrooke is the King's Commissioner, Colum Murtagh.

The mystery was of interest and is set against the background of Chaucer's famous account of pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales. However, the descriptions of daily life are even more fascinating, although not being a medieval scholar I can't vouch for their accuracy: the treatments for ailments (magpie beak around the neck for toothache), the expressions (you sniveling tub of lard), the food (boiled chicken stuffed with grapes). Medieval life is not glorified since illness, stench and squalor abound. However, the bawdiness ascribed to those times is humorously depicted, especially in Thomasina, Kathryn's bluff maid, and even in the physician's alibis (one was in bed with his fellow physician's wife while he was with another man).

There are two minor mysteries revolving around the history of the main characters. Kathryn's husband is missing and she is being blackmailed. Colum is being hounded by former boyhood friends. Despite their differences, the physician and the soldier grow to respect and like each other. I'm curious to see what happens in the next book. The woodcut style used in the cover art is also appropriate to the era.

Canterbury, late fifteenth century. As pilgrims flock to the famed town to see the remains of Blessed Thomas à Becket, the town's council is in ruins for having supported Lancaster King Henry VI in his war against the York king, Edward IV. With Edward's victory, the town is facing sanctions that have put it in a precarious position throughout England. In the midst of the turmoil, someone is pinning notices on the door to the Cathedral predicting the death of a pilgrim - and then poisoning the visitors one by one.

To help with the crimes, Irish knight Colum Murtagh has selected Kathryn Swinbrooke, a female physician/herbalist. Kathryn not only knows the city well, but she is an expert at poisons. The killer is a man with knowledge of herbs, meaning he must be a doctor. She is therefore elimiated from the pool of suspects. But who is murdering pilgrims, whose money brings lifeblood to the town? And why is he attaching notices of the victims - identified by profession - to the church door? Together, Kathryn and Colum must work together to battle their personal demons and an uncooperative batch of suspects to catch the killer before word gets out and pilgrims stop coming to the city.

Overall, the plot of the book is decent. Though it's an extremely short work, it does have action and intrigue. However, it didn't deliver as I thought it would. Perhaps it is because I just finished Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death series (and eagerly await its next installment), but this one seemed almost one-dimensional. It was easy enough to get through, but without a copy of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" lying nearby, I would have been completely in the dark as to the identity of the killer until he was unmasked just a few pages from the end.

I am currently undecided as to whether or not I will continue reading the subsequent books in this series. But for now, "A Shrine of Murders" didn't quite live up to the expectations I had for it.