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Cassandra Clark
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Publisher | John Murray | ||
ISBN | 978071952231 | ||
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Reviewer
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Vicky
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Synopsis
November, 1382. The month of the dead. At the Feast of St. Martin in the fifth year of King Richards reign, a nun rides out for York and the Abbey of Meaux. But this is no ordinary journey. Rival popes, a boy on the English throne and a volatile peace in the savage aftermath of Wat Tylers murder. Travelling alone, Hildegaard encounters a gibbet with five bloodied crow-stripped corpses, and later the body of a youth, brutally butchered. Who is he? And what is his connection to the hanged men? Murder will touch Hildegaard and those she loves even more closely as she rides on to her childhood home. Castle Hutton is riven by treachery. Old loyalties are shifting. Hildegard will need all her courage to counter the dark forces in the land. First in an engrossing new series of mediaeval mysteries, Hangman Blind" introduces an intrepid new heroine.
Review
Hangman Blind is a brilliant book which I thoroughly enjoyed - not just because it's set in 1382 with all the richness of that period, but because it's so well written. Cassandra Clark is a playwrite who pays tremendous attention to the minute details of dress, culture, religion and of course history.
This is the first of the Abbess of Meaux series in which Sister Hildergard still grieving for her lost husband (which is why she took the habit) sets out for her childhood home Castle Hutton to start a nunnery and do good works, but is forced to turn detective when she discovers 6 dead men in the forest on the way and she want to find out why they were killed. Cassandra Clark does not turn away from putting in some fairly gory details here!
There are so many twists and turns in the story that just when you think you've sussed the who done it bit - along comes another twist! I felt her characters were well written and I cared very much for them whether they were the servants in the castle or the enemy trying to rock the boat quite literally. Cassandra is such a visual writer that I had no problem creating the pictures of the story in my mind as I read Hangman Blind.
I highly recommend this book and look forward to Cassandra Clark's next book in this series.
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