FINISHED READING - A Wicked Deed by Susanna Gregory

In this the fifth of the Mathew Bartholemew Chronicles, He is sent, with Micheal, a few students and a number of legal minded monks to Grundisburgh. The local lord,  Thomas Tuddenham wants to bequeath the living of Grundisburgh parish church to a Michealhouse cleric. This large party from Cambridge is sent to familiarise themselves with the location, and be companions to Unwin introducing him as the new vicar, and draw up the necessary documentation.

As they near the village they find a man hanging half dead, whom Mathew attempts to save. When they return later with Tuddenham there is no visible sign of him ever being there. Tuddenham, they find, is way too keen on the documents being drawn up quickly. No one understands quite why. There appears to be a lot of contention and resentment between the local nobllity, over land ownership and precedence.

Before any documents can be drawn up Unwin, the prospective vicar is murdered. Just the first of many deaths that follow in the village. So what is going on?  Why does someone want to prevent the signing of the document being drawn up?

The first in the series that moves the location outside of Cambridge. This definitely reinvigorates Gregory's storytelling by removing it from the familiar sense of place of the college environment.  Preventing any feeling of de-ja-vu emerging, which somewhat bedevilled the earlier novels. The change of setting draws more out of Gregory who gives us here, a fresher and more spritely style of medieval who dunnit. Great atmospheric use is made of the abandoned village of Barchester. Like many villages in this period,  completely depopulated to extinction by the plague. 

It keeps you guessing and wrong foots you cleverly, as one might expect. She continues to paint greater emotional depth into Bartholemew's character. Here he is definitely more of a cross patch than in previous incarnations. Ribled and alarmed by the local quacks and their dangerous remedies. There is a sense that his disatisfaction with the lack of a private life is growing, and some sort of shift of attitude towards his future career path is underway.

However, endings, endings for Gregory still bring this deadly dull thud to the concluding chapters. Any tension or sense of threat is dissipated, nay thrown away, by endless questions demanding clarification - So, was it you who killed...... Once again Micheal and Bartholemew are held captive by various folk who openly brag, or extensively fess up to the complexity of their misdemeanors. Providing the minute detail of all the whys and wherefores of the case, and unresolved issues. This is exasperating and, to this degree, entirely unnecessary. Maybe, it's time I took a long break from the circus of these Medieval Cambridge clerics.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8