Covenant with Hell

Starred review from October 14, 2013
Royal’s 10th whodunit featuring Brother Thomas and Prioress Eleanor (after 2012’s Sanctity of Hate) perfectly mixes an accessible portrait of 1277 England—its culture and politics—with sympathetic characters and a suspenseful plot. Eleanor and Thomas embark on a pilgrimage from Tyndal to the shrine at Walsingham Priory in East Anglia. Shortly after they arrive, Thomas finds the broken body of Sister Roysia at the base of the Ryehill Priory bell tower, from which she just fell. The prioress of Ryehill, Ursell, is eager that her institution’s reputation not be tarnished by rumors that the nun took her own life, and pronounces the death an accident. But Thomas and Eleanor can’t ignore evidence of foul play—a fragment of cloth clutched in Roysia’s hand, indicating that she was not alone when she died. An impending visit from Edward I raises the stakes. Royal again demonstrates why she’s a worthy successor to Ellis Peters.

November 1, 2013
A visit to a famous shrine entangles a prioress and her companion in murder and treason. In 1277, King Edward, who plans to invade Wales, may be stopping at the East Anglian shrine where Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal and Brother Thomas are making a pilgrimage. Prioress Ursell of Ryehill and her priest, Father Vincent, are eager for them to leave, especially once Sister Roysia falls to her death from the bell tower. After all, Eleanor's reputation for investigating crimes may make it more difficult for Ursell and Vincent to have Roysia's death ruled an accident. The situation is made even more delicate by rumors that Roysia was the lover of Master Larcher, who makes the pilgrim badges that are the main source of Ryehill's income. Also in town are a large number of pilgrims and a nosy wine merchant who's asking too many questions about the king's upcoming visit. One of the pilgrims, a wealthy widow, has kindly attached herself to Eleanor, who's still in pain from walking the last mile of her pilgrimage barefoot. Thomas is disgusted when Father Vincent blames a young orphan, starving on the streets, for her own rape, and Prioress Ursell seems none too charitable either. Danger awaits Eleanor and Thomas, who can't tell whom to trust in the search for Sister Roysia's killer and a clever assassin who plots to kill the king. The wealth of historical information and the minutiae of daily life often upstage relatively weak mysteries in Eleanor's adventures (The Sanctity of Hate, 2012, etc.), but this one pulls in enough red herrings to keep even nonmedievalists interested.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2013
Once again, Royal utilizes a religious pilgrimage as the perfect backdrop for an expertly wrought and detailed medieval mystery. Wherever Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas travel, murder and mayhem are certain to follow. After they arrive at the Holy Shrines of Walsingham, in East Anglica, a nun falls mysteriously to her death from the bell tower. Though there are whispers of both suicide and an improper relationship, Eleanor and Thomas dig deeper, exposing a tarnished priest and untwisting a treasonous plot to assassinate King Edward. Royal does her usual superb job of dovetailing both the religious and the political subtext bolstering her tautly strung narrative. This historically authentic series is definitely on a par with the best of Peter Tremayne and Ellis Peters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)