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| A weekly meme hosted by Book Love Blog: Post about the books you've purchased, received, borrowed or otherwise acquired this past week! |
Genre: Historical Fiction; Historical Mystery; Mystery
Goodreads Blurb: Hugh of Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight, has been educated as a clerk, usually a prelude to taking holy orders. However, feeling no certain calling despite a lively faith, he turns to the profession of surgeon, training in Paris and then hanging out his sign in Oxford.
A local lord asks him to track the killer of a young woman whose bones have been found in the castle cess pit. She is identified as the impetuous missing daughter of a local blacksmith, and her young man, whom she had provoked very publicly, is in due course arrested and sentenced at the Oxford assizes. From there the tale unfolds, with graphic medical procedures, droll medieval wit, misdirection, ambition, romantic distractions and a consistent underlying Christian compassion.
Why I can't wait to read this: A friend from my synagogue gave this book to me as a Kindle-gift. He insists that since I love the Matthew Shardlake Mysteries, I'll love this as well, even though it's set earlier and there's not even a hint of a Jewish character. (I laughed at that--we both love Shardlake's assistant, Jack Barak, who's descended from converso Jews.) At any event, my friend's enthusiasm for this book is contagious; I moved it straight up to the top of my to-read pile!
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