The Winter King

February 3, 2014
On All Saints’ Eve, 1211, Lord Benedict de Vitré of Medley Hall, an obese nobleman suspected of lining his pockets with his sovereign’s money, dies suddenly in the midst of a gluttonous feast, in Clare’s intriguing 15th Hawkenlye whodunit (after 2012’s The Song of the Nightingale). Given his poor health and the absence of obvious signs of death, foul play isn’t suspected, despite the number of people wishing him ill, including his wife, Lady Richenza, who has employed healer Sabin de Gifford to thwart her husband’s desire for an heir. Sabin fears that the medications she secretly supplied to make procreation less likely may have contributed to de Vitré’s death. Evidence of murder soon emerges, and de Vitré isn’t the last to die, giving Sabin and her fellow healer, Meggie d’Acquin, several crimes to solve. The convincing depiction of King John’s England, “suffering the results of the monarch’s petulant squabble with Pope Innocent,” makes up for an unremarkable mystery.

July 8, 2013
Clare’s fifth paranormal mystery featuring 11th-century apprentice healer Lassair (after 2011’s The Way Between the Worlds) gets off to a fast start with a “red-bearded giant” bursting into the home of Utta, mother-in-law of Lassair’s sister Goda, and smashing in Utta’s skull. The intruder also injures Goda. Later, someone, presumably the same man, breaks into the abbey where another sister of Lassair lives, the nun Elfritha, and ransacks the dormitory before turning his attention to Lassair’s own home in Aelf Fen, a town in East Anglia. Lassair is at a loss as to what the stranger could be looking for, and her search for answers ends up taking her to Iceland. But the narrative doesn’t sustain the tension created by the rapid-fire acts of terror that kick things off, and the inevitable deceleration makes this a less engaging entry than its predecessor.