Sarah Hawkswood - the Bradcote and Catchpoll mysteries

I bought the first two paperbacks in the series many months ago - from a Charity shop in Ashby de la Zouch.  They have lain by my bedside table ever since. Then, I recently bought the rest on EBay in a collecting frenzy. I think I now have them all right up to date, viz.: (paperback dates only)

2017    Servant of Death          2017    Ordeal by Fire          2018    Marked to Die
2020    Hostage to Fortune      2020    Vale of Tears            2020    Faithful unto Death
2020    River of Sins (due in November)

Hawkwood's first book is set in June 1143, eight years into what we call 'The Anarchy' - the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda - and 11 years before it ended. The story takes place entirely in the environs of Pershore Abbey (there is a simple but useful plan of its buildings) and details the murder of The Lord Bishop of Winchester's clerk, who brought quite a bit of historical animosity with him. Found in front of the high altar, spread out in the form of a cross, Eudo could have been killed by one of several suspects. The tale introduces Serjeant Catchpoll (we never learn his Christian name) a sniffer of criminals, a man who could track and out-think the most cunning of law breakers by the simple expedient of understanding the way that they thought but being better at it. William de Beauchamp, sheriff of the shire, and Catchpoll's boss, is a supporter of Matilda and there is a suggestion that spying for her comes into the equation. There is a tinge of romance between Sister Edeva, a Benedictine nun from Romsey at Pershore to bargain for a relic (the bone of a finger oif St Eadburga), and the new (acting) under-sheriff Hugh Bradecote, who does not appear until page 51.

There are some interesting characters involved: Elias of St Edmondsbury, a master mason; Miles FitzHugh, a young squire; Waleran de Grismont who was 'courting' Isabelle d'Achelie (and who hopes to get King Stephen's consent to a marriage), a young widow with a depressingly mundane late husband; Margery Weaver, also a widow but now running a successful wool trade between the Welsh Marches and Winchester; and a few others. The story is quite well told; it was increasingly obvious who the murderer had to be, even though red-herrings were strewn.

Ordeal by Fire, the second story, is set in Catchpoll's home town/city of Worcester. It concerns a series of fires, started deliberately by a tall, hooded male with long feet. I guessed very early on who the arsonist was, but the linkage between the targets was only gradually released. I preferred the first story to this one, as I found it hard to empathise with the characters. Bradecote had just lost his wife in childbirth and a young girl is burnt in one arson attack, but no deep emotion is stirred. I will read the others in the series and comment on them, but will have a break. Allison and Busby should be congratulated on publishing a clutch of writers of historical who-dunnits:  I have the entire sixteen volumes of Edward Marston's Nicholas Bracewell series and his five books in the Daniel Rawson tales. All are easy-to-read books and probably easy-to-write!