Customer Reviews

The Traitor's Tale

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this most recent Sister Fervisse installment, author Margaret Frazer moves away from the traditional whodunit into the realm of political intrigue and assassination. As usual, Ms Frazer has taken real historical events and woven her own, very own personal web around it, that results in the very absorbing "A Traitor's Tale."

In 1450, England seems to be teeming with plots and counter-plots and a populace angry at the manner in which the country is being run. For many, the honourable and capable Duke of York, is an answer to all prayers, and they live in the hope that the exiled nobleman will return to England and help their weak king, Henry VI, with the governance of the land. So that when it comes to the duke's attention that the late and unlamented Duke of Suffolk, may have left a letter listing those who had betrayed their King by conspiring with the French, he sends out his best spy, Simon Joliffe, to try and retrieve the letter. But when Joliffe starts trying to track down this letter, he discovers that those who may know something of this letter have all met with mysterious deaths. At the same time, the Duchess of Suffolk is herself anxious to retrieve this same letter in order to safeguard her son's future. Can the Duchess and Joliffe work together in order to find this letter and discover why the late Duke's men are being killed off one by one? It would seem as if they must; and fortunately for them, Dame Fervisse of St Frideswide, the Duchess' cousin and Joliffe's friend, who has come to the Duchess' side at her hour of need, is at hand to help them figure out who is behind these murders and why...

Anyone who has been reading my reviews of Margaret Frazer's Dame Fervisse mysteries will already know how very much I like this series and that one of the things that I enjoy most about these mysteries is how vividly the author colours each plot with the pageantry and history (social, economic and political) of the period. All this and more -- a well written and suspenseful plot peopled with brilliantly realised character portrayals -- can be found in this latest Dame Fervisse installment, "The Traitor's Tale." But what I especially liked about this novel, other than that it featured the main protagonist from Margaret Frazer's other medieval series, the strolling actor, Joliffe, and allowed us to glimpse at how this character will evolve from player to spy, was how Margaret Frazer, incisively and succinctly gives us a thumbnail sketch of events that will lead to one of England's bloodiest civil wars, the War of the Roses. Al in all, this was a very fast paced and very enjoyable read, that I would encourage lovers of medieval mystery novels to pick up and read.

I gave this 5 stars, but almost gave it a 4. Not because of the book itself. As usual Margaret Frazer has done an excellent job of creating characters and telling a good tale. Dame Frivesse is one of my favorite literary figures, and when paired with Joliffe you can be sure the yarn is always a good one.

I think my disappoint comes from all the politics involved. For people who enjoy a good political medieval mystery, its a marvelous tale. But for me...gosh, I'd like just a good old fashioned murder in a small English village, and leave the politics out.

Having said that, I would still recommend The Traitor's Tale, along with all the other books in the series to anyone who wants a smashing good read on a cold winter's day.

Mystery authors with series amateur sleuths always face one problem -- how is it that your protagonist keeps getting involved in murders? Margaret Frazer has solved this problem neatly by having her smart and utterly sympathetic Dame Frevisse become embroiled, albeit totally unwillingly, in the political intrigue leading up to the War of the Roses. This book, like the others before it, is fascinating in not only giving a picture of life in the 15th century, but doing so with believable characters that manage to resonate with the current day reader without seeming anachronistic.

There is much exposition in this book. Lots of mysteries bog down on the inevitable "it could have been done THIS way" dialogue, but Frazer not only makes the dialogue -- and the underlying history lesson! -- compelling but also entertaining in the exchange between those two fine minds, Frevisse and Joliffe.

Frazer is truly a master of the craft, and Frevisse has become one of the great classic characters. Let's hope she and Joliffe share many more adventures!

I have enjoyed the Sister Frevisse series since the beginning, and you could tell that from my reviews of a couple of the previous volumes in the series. This one, however, marks the first time I have found a book in this series barely worth finishing. Usually, the books in the series focus a great deal on Sister Frevisse's thoughts, on daily life in the cloister, on characters whom we meet and get to know well. This book, however, concentrates almost entirely on politics, and not at all on character.

I like the separate series with Joliffe as a travelling player, als the "A Play of..." books. And I have enjoyed the books in which Joliffe and Sister Frevisse have been together, because those books included the humorous side of Joliffe's personality, as well as his intelligence. In this volume, though, Joliffe is all spy, with only the most glancing references to his past as an actor, as if he has been a spy and nothing but a spy, for many years - which does not jibe with the rest of the books in this series, and certainly not with the books in Joliffe's own series. (For example, A Play of Dux Moraud (Joliffe Mysteries).) Frevisse, as well, is almost entirely out of the element we have most often seen her in, in the past. At the beginning of the book, she is sent on a mission outside the convent, and we have almost nothing at all of convent life after that. In fact, there are a few downright unbelievable moments, when she does return to the convent, where she pretends to be sick - and then says she'll stay in the guest house, so as to risk the guests getting sick rather than the other sisters - a more un-nunlike sentiment I can't imagine.

In fact, the personalities of all the characters have changed so much that when Frevisse, her cousin Alice, and Joliffe are talking together, one has to go back and count sentences to tell who is talking; they all sound exactly the same, talking bitterly and cynically about political intrigue and nothing else.

As those reviewers who enjoyed the book have provided descriptions of the plot, I'll leave it to them. I'll just say that if you wanted to know more about King Henry, about Somerset and York, about Jack Cade's Rebellion, then you'll get plenty of that, in lieu of any personalized plot involving characters we might feel as if we know personally.

In short, if you were reading this series mainly because you were interested in the English history parts, and wanted to know more about the rebellions, then you might find something worthwhile in this volume; if you were reading the series because you liked the character of Frevisse and the details of daily life and of her regular interactions with other well-drawn characters, you will find almost none of that here, and it will disappoint you as it did me. Again, this reflects that my interest in reading the whole series was in the details of Frevisse's life, and in the drawing of individual characters; many people enjoy the series for other reasons, and may well find this book still satisfactory.

This book is the strongest and best in an already strong series. Ms. Frazer's Dame Frevisse is a nun like none you will have ever encountered before. In fact, this book is so good, that anyone who loves historical fiction should read all the fifteen previous books in this series in order to fully understand and appreciate this one. Ms. Frazer's history knowledge is formidable, and it shows that she does countless hours of research before she writes a book. This book gives a really good picture of what happened in England to set the stage for the War of the Roses. Henry VI was certainly not a good king by any stretch of the imagination, but as to whether he was just weak and pious, or instead a wicked king that deliberately planned and abetted many people's murders is up to the reader to decide. Ms. Frazer sets the ground work for the reader to come to their own decision. Her characters, beside Dame Frevisse, are also very strong. The book is full of deceit, intrigue, political machinations and a good little mystery to boot. I highly recommend it, as well as the fifteen previous books in this series.

is found in this latest entry in Margaret Frazer's series featuring Dame Frevisse and/or Joliffe. And this is one of the best in the series! As a reader I need to at least like the characters in a book, and Dame Frevisse and Joliffe have always appealed because of their intelligence, astuteness and sharp wits. You get to live a bit of history, just a small dose, not overwhelming, and the people who figure in this lordly mystery are fully drawn and entertaining, most of them historically accurate, a few just fictional. The author writes extremely well, and the action comes alive as what should have been a simple task -- finding a letter, previously unknown to exist, and turning it over to the Duke of York to whom it will matter a great deal -- becomes dangerous and complicated. Joliffe, in other books a traveling player working within a small group to make a living traveling and performing at manors and castles, has become something else entirely: a spy, a highly respected and loyal follower: a fighter. Can we expect another book that will peel away another layer of the mysterious Joliffe? One can hope so, as well as another chapter in Dame Frevisse's eventful life as a nun. I really liked this book. If you've kept up with this series, don't miss this latest entry!

In THE TRAITOR'S TALE Margararet Frazer weaves another intricate Dame Frevisse mystery, rich in historical detail and peopled with colorful characters -- both real and imaginary. It is the summer of 1450, a very troubled time in the British Isles. The French have taken most of England's rich provinces on the continent with surprising ease, giving rise to suspicions of treason in high places. At home uprisings like Jack Cade's Rebellion have exposed Henry VI as a weak ruler dominated by court favorites. One of those, the duke of Suffolk, was murdered at sea as he sailed into exile for his failures in Normandy. His widow summons her sister, the Benedictine nun Dame Frevisse, to help untangle the mystery surrounding Suffolk's death. Men who served him or were his allies are dying and disappearing.

The man known as Simon Joliffe reappears in THE TRAITOR'S TALE, now acting as a courier for the duke of York. Joliffe is a valuable addition to Frazer's cast of fictional characters; a man of action who provides a counterpoint to the devout Frevisse. He goes places and does things that she cannot, thus freeing the storytelling from its static tether. There are hints in this book that he is more than a mere traveling player or a simple courier. I'm sure we will encounter him again as Frevisse's England bumbles onward into the War of the Roses.

I adore the Player series featuring Joliffe, perhaps more than I enjoy the parent series where the character was first introduced, so any Frevisse novel that features him makes me happy. This follows on from The Sempster's Tale, with Frevisse still carrying out the task asked of her by her cousin, the newly widowed Duchess of Suffolk. In this one, Joliffe is finally the spy we always knew he'd be and the political turmoil is greater than ever before. (And to the reviewer below who thinks this contradicts the Player series, note that the Frevisse novels are far ahead, time wise. This book is set in 1450 while the most recent Player novel was set in 1435). Geat book, I'm already hungering for the next!

The Traitor's Tale, 16th in the series of Dame Frevisse Medieval Mysteries, is set in the summer of 1450 as the Hundred Years War wound down, amid riots against King Henry VI, murders, political plots and the loss of English territory in France.

Dame Frevisse is called out of her cloister to assist her cousin, Lady Alice, recently widowed by the brutal murder of her husband, the Duke of Suffolk. Lady Alice however is in need of more than Frevisse's emotional and spiritual support--she also needs her skills in solving plots and mysteries. Several of her retainers are missing or murdered, and she fears for her young son. One of the missing is Burgate, her husband's secretary, and there are tales that the Duke of Suffolk wrote dangerous letters shortly before his murder that were entrusted to Burgate--but no one seems to know where he is.

Simon Joliffe, player and spy, crosses paths with Frevisse and Lady Alice's retainer Vaughn in pursuit of some similar information that may help or hinder his employer, the exiled Duke of York. Travels across the kingdom, riots, beheadings, stabbings, hidden parcels, and behind-the-scenes political machinations, all weave through this book like the fine-patterned satin on a Duke's doublet.

Armchair Interview says: Fans of historical fiction will also find much here to enjoy. And, the author has notes listing several sources for her "plots."

As usual, Margaret Frazer delivers and this time she weaves Dame Frevisse's and Simon Joliffe's storylines together. The result? A compelling tale, well told. Let's hope she has more stories coming!

Eleanor Sullivan, author of Assumed Dead