The Song of the Nightingale

September 3, 2012
In the grim prologue of Clare’s solid 14th Hawkenlye mystery set in 13th-century England (after 2011’s The Rose of the World), three homeless thugs attack a family of three in their isolated house: a father and mother and their grown daughter. The father dies, the mother goes mad, and the daughter, who’s raped, calls out for vengeance. Sure enough, three male corpses are later unearthed in the woods near Hawkenlye Abbey. When Sir Josse d’Acquin, lord of the local manor, investigates, he learns that the likely date of their deaths coincides with the end of a series of robberies and assaults in the area. But getting a handle on the dead men’s identities is only the first step in ascertaining how they met their end. While the mystery component isn’t particularly memorable, Clare has never been better at showing how the common folk struggled to survive under the oppressive reign of King John.

October 1, 2012
The brutal reign of King John makes life difficult for all England, including the people who live in and near Hawkenlye Abbey. With England under an interdict from the pope, King John is squeezing every penny from his people, leaving many starving and homeless. Some have taken to robbery and rape. When the bodies of three such men are found buried near the abbey, one of them with strange marks carved into his chest, the sheriff asks for help from Sir Josse D'Acquin. Josse has his own problems feeding his people. The woman he loves, former abbess Helewise, is moving back to her cell near the abbey to help the sick and starving. His son Ninian is still in France, entangled with a religious group hunted by the powers that be. Ninian's love, Little Helewise, is pregnant, and Josse's daughter Meggie is involved with a foreigner who is suspected of the murders. When more miscreants are killed, the sovereign's lackeys launch a search for the killer, and Meggie and her new friend flee to France. They are soon followed by Josse and Helewise, who hope to find Ninian and tell him that he can return because he is no longer accused of murder. In the meantime, another man is captured and incarcerated at the abbey, where only the current abbess and her nuns are left to help him. Like other entries in this pleasing series (The Rose of the World, 2011, etc.), this one is much stronger on history than mystery.

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October 15, 2012
The year is 1211, and Britain is suffering under the despotic rule of King John, who has clamped down on the church and imposed a harsh regime of taxation. Sir Josse D'Aquin and his family suffer with the rest of the population, but Sir Josse's misery is forgotten when he is called to examine the body of a dead man with a shocking vengeance symbol carved on his chest. Could the victim be linked to a series of brutal rapes and robberies in the region? Meanwhile, Sir Josse's son, Ninian, hiding in France to escape a false charge of murder, has taken refuge with the Cathars, a religious sect whose members hide in isolated mountain villages to avoid persecution by Simon de Montfort and his army. A strange vision in which his long-dead mother urges Ninian to go to Chartres leads him on a deadly but illuminating adventure. In this latest entry in her Hawkenlye series, Clare skilfully ties together a number of seemingly disparate plot threads, weaving a mystical, adventure-filled tale that's part love story, part murder mystery, and part historical saga.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)