Reviews for An unholy alliance

The average rating for An unholy alliance based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-07-17 00:00:00 Karla Tilly **Definitely 4.5 STARS!** This eventful historical mystery is the 2nd volume of the "Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles", originally from 1996 but still very delightful, from the author, Susanna Gregory. Storytelling is of a very good quality, the characters come wonderfully to life within this mystery, and the atmosphere and living conditions of Cambridge and surroundings in the AD 1350s come superbly off the pages. At the beginning of the book you'll find a well-drawn map of Cambridge, England, circa AD 1348, while at the end you'll be presented with historical details concerning this story, and these are very well documented and explained by the author within the Historical Note. This story starts off in the year AD 1350, Cambridge, and our main character, Matthew Bartholomew, finds himself once again drawn into another deadly mystery. While still struggling to overcome the Black Death and its subsequent superstitions in Cambridge and in the whole of England, Matthew Bartholomew is trying to train new physicians at Michaelhouse to replace others who've perished, when all of a sudden a friar is found dead in a massive chest, in which precious University documents are stored. And so while investigating the death of this friar, Matthew also stumbles upon other deaths concerning prostitutes, and not to forget he will encounter dangerous covens who are meeting in derelict churches to plan mischief upon the people of Cambridge. What follows is a very enjoyable and colourful medieval mystery, in which Matthew Bartholomew, along with the help of his Fellow investigator, the Benedictine Monk, Brother Michael, who's also a spy for the Bishop of Ely, has to entangle various threads of this terrible web of deceit and murder, before he and Michael will eventually catch the culprits behind the murders of the friar, Froissart and several others, before being able to track down the murderer of the prostitutes and bring him to justice as well. Very much recommended, for this is a very fine series, and although this part is now at this moment 23-years old, its still refreshing to read, and that's why I like to call this book: "A Holy Exciting Sequel"!

Review # 2 was written on 2009-11-26 00:00:00 Susan Masten An Unholy Alliance, the second of Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew historical mysteries is once again delightfully and informatively replete with much historical detail (not only with regard to Medieval Cambridge, but about the entire era of the Plague and how in the immediate aftermath of the same, a belief in the occult has tended to flourish, so that unscrupulous town and university worthies are able to make use of residents' legitimate fears and their justified frustrations that the Church had not been able to protect and save them from the Black Death). Presenting an evocative, as well as very immediate sense of both time and place, Susanna Gregory once again introduces, portrays characters who are delightfully human, who often tend to grow on you and become part of you to such an extent that you might even personally enjoy having some if not many of them as friends and perhaps even more (but I guess that holds mostly true for characters like Matthew, Brother Michael, Mathilde the Prostitute and Oswald Stanhope, as of course, the same cannot really be said about some of the lesser and especially the villainous personages, but truly, all of the presented and featured literary figures, both heroes and villains, are for the most part portrayed as richly nuanced, and even with regard to those characters who do end up as scoundrels, as criminals, their nastiness, their negativity, their threatening and dangerous natures, that is often not all that obvious and readily noticeable at the onset, is delightfully, sometimes even rather creepily and strangely hidden). Now truth be told, An Unholy Alliance actually features two separate mysteries, namely who is killing the town prostitutes, and who has kidnapped university officials and is engaging in seemingly satanic rituals in a decrepit unused church. And one is almost lulled into thinking that as soon as Matthew and Brother Michael have solved the second mystery (who is the main instigator of the satanic rituals, the kidnappings etc.) that the killer of the harlots has also been discovered, but that proves to be an illusion, a tragic mistake (and Sibylla the prostitute, who had been in hiding after having witnessed the murder of her friend, of another prostitute, is actually killed precisely because both she and her confidante Mathilde, as well as Matthew and Brother Michael are so convinced that the killer of the town harlots and the main mover and shaker with regard to the kidnappings of university officials and the instigator of the satanic rites are by necessity and similarity of action and behaviour one and the same and thus sadly and tragically let down their guard, lessen their prudence). Combined with an at times horrifying, yet thankfully always realistic ambience and sense of what Cambridge as a university and as a town was like during the Middle Ages, during the first bout of the Black Death and its immediate aftermath, An Unholy Alliance is highly recommended for ANYONE (but especially for historical mystery enthusiasts who are looking for a series that is not too gratuitously violent, that is intelligent, informative and has living and breathing, has authentic seeming persons as its cast of characters). And the academic setting of Cambridge University is an added bonus, an evocative painting of what academic life was like in Medieval Cambridge, Medieval Britain (not only its positives, but also its many negatives).