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Third Book in the Series

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This is the third book in the series that features Prioress Eleanor at the Tyndal Priory. The author continues to add more flesh to the bones of her characters, so to speak and the tension between Eleanor and Brother Thomas continues. A tension that is exacerbated by the Eleanor's tender feeling for Thomas.

One could I suppose draw parallels between the two leading characters of Priscilla Royal's books and those of Abbess Helewise and Sir Josse d'Aquin in the Alys Clare medieval mysteries or even with Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf in Peter Tremayne's Irish medieval mysteries. All of these characters are portrayed as real, honest to goodness human beings who have their frailties, i.e. sinful thoughts and sinful deeds and are far removed from the whiter than white, celibate characters that many of the clergy are portrayed as in books by other author's.

The story revolves around the discovery of the corpse of a brutally murdered soldier near Tyndale Priory. There is a dagger in the man's chest and the knife is covered in strange designs and the body is wrapped in the cloak of a crusader. Crowner Ralf decides to take the body to the priory, but he may yet live to regret this decision. It is not long before Brother Thomas becomes a suspect in the murder and Ralf's loyalties begin to tear him apart. Who does he side with, his brother the sheriff, or loyalty to an old friend . . .

Unrelieved Grief Can Kill, so Forgive the Sinner.

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When you trust someone who deceived and hoodwinked you for five and six years is the equivalent as sorrow without end. Aeschylus, author of "Prometheus Bound,' wrote "Once to die is better than length of days in sorrow without end." The loss of faith in someone you thought you knew is worse than death. The grief of an impossible love as mortals try to emulate God's wisdom; we can never equal God's most perfect justice." When you harm another person, you will eventually pay in kind, sorrow without end.

This is a medieval version of the old movie, "Arsenic and Old Lace" in which two old ladies take in old men boarders to kill them and burry theim in the basement. By the time their nephew, played by Cary Grant, discovers what they have been doing, there are already thirteen graves and one cadiver in a chest in the living room. Two thieves want to kill Grant and both old ladies but there is no place to put their bodies. In the 13rd century, illness were worse than death. Illness in the Middle Ages was frightening. Some of the cures were even more so. Fakery by physicians as in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales,' is on the level of fakery in historical writing when it is all based on fiction.

There is much history of kings and royalty, monks and priotities which were all-limits to average people. Purgatory for having been too preoccupied with religiosity to pay adequate attention to governing King Henry III's subjects. Historians of the time concluded that he was not successful. Only fake historians can get away with palming off on uneducated public things which did not take place and never was true. That is called the modern way of re-writing history, but it is all false and the writer is using his skills to make people believe that his version is factual. Nowadays, it is hard to know what is truth and nothing but the truth. This is a fictionalized mystery based during the time of Eleanor, Henry, and various and sundry popes. It is written in the style of Medieval writing and not modern so that is one way not to appear to be factual or even an expert in the field. Books of history are not authenticated as there are so few really interested in the good things which happened in the past, only the bad. Many such will suffer sorrow without end.

strong medieval mystery

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Prince Edward is in the Mideast determined to wrest Jerusalem out of the Saracen's hands; many wounded soldiers, in body and soul, are returning home and countless of them stop at Tyndal Priory where they hope to get rid of their afflictions in the hospital run by the monks and the nuns. One the road to Tyndal Priory, a man returning home kills a foot soldier in a very gruesome manner.

Ralf the crowner (a man who hunts down criminals) brings the corpse to Tyndal Priory to have the nuns look at the body for clues. Brother Thomas, who has just returned to the priory, examines the body and thinks is his former jailer; he faints. When he comes to, he refuses to tell Ralf why he fainted. He is imprisoned in a cell until he is willing to tell Ralf the truth but the prioress Eleanor believe the real killer is hiding out among the patients. When a second murder occurs, a thorough investigation is undertaken.

Fans of Sharon King Penman will want to read SORROW WITHOUT END a medieval mystery that captures the flow of the Middle Ages. The mystery is well constructed and thought provoking as readers learn about life inside the priory and the battle fatigue syndrome afflicting the soldiers who made it home. There are many suspects but nobody seems to have a motive for the killings. This book is made even more interesting then most medieval tales because it shows that the nuns and monks have human emotions that they are forbidden by their vows to act on.

Harriet Klausner