"Sykes can be described as the 'medieval C. J. Sansom.' Off-the-charts imaginative and breathtaking."
Description
In the new Somershill Manor Mystery, Oswald de Lacy brings his family to a secluded island castle to escape the Black Death, but soon a murder within the household proves that even the strongest fortresses aren't free from terror in fourteenth-century England.
When the Black Death reappears in England in 1361, Oswald de Lacy knows that the safest place for his wife and young son is the island-fortress of Eden, where his eccentrically pious friend Godfrey has invited the family to stay to wait out the plague during the long, dark winter. But Oswald has barely had time to settle in when a brutal murder shocks the household and it soon becomes clear that the castle is not the stronghold of security that he was so desperately looking for.
Oswald knows the castle isn’t safe, but escaping to the plague-infested countryside outside its walls is not an option. His only hope is to solve the mystery of the murder before the killer strikes again. With a cast of characters like something out of Chaucer—a lord and lady, a knight, a religious radical, a court jester, a drunk, and a couple of traveling craftsmen are just some of the suspects Oswald must reckon with—and the all-consuming threat of the plague hovering just outside the castle walls, the newest novel in the Somershill Manor Mysteries is the most brilliant and frightening yet.
Reviews
"It’s no fun reading a medieval mystery if it isn’t steeped in filth, squalor and pestilence. S. D. Sykes gets right to the point, which serves it all up in vivid detail, from the noxious smells to an actual burial pit, heaped with the putrefying bodies of plague victims. A clever plot."
"Sykes’ fourth is anchored in a grimly evocative first-person narrative reminiscent of Poe."
"Deft characterization introduces new readers to the members of the de Lacy family without slowing the pace with excessive explanation of previous events. This claustrophobic mystery full of medieval atmosphere will be as engrossing as an entry point to the series as it will be to returning fans."
