Hangman Blind by Cassandra Clark
This is another first book by a new author, and this time I can find almost nothing about her on the web. Hangman Blind is the first book in a new series The Abbess of Meaux. I have been reading so many books by new authors recently, I was wondering about this as I started. I’ll say that the publishers have once again put the wrong cover on the book. The red dress on the cover is certainly not that of a medieval nun.
But to start from the beginning. Hildegarde (isn’t that a medieval name) is an widow of independent spirit and means after her husband is killed fighting in France. Rather than submit to the authority of another husband, she becomes a Cistercian nun living in a priory in the north of England. When the book opens she is seeking permission to begin a small chapter of her order that will eventually work within the community teaching and healing. She is sent to the abbot at Meaux to negotiate a suitable site with him. Through a series of circumstances too complicated for this review, she ends up at Castle Hutton, where she grew up. Like many heroes in this genre, death and murder follow them wherever they go. Hildegarde finds 6 dead bodies on her way to the abbey, and the owner of Castle Hutton is poisoned within hours of her arrival. I eventually lost track of the body count.
When I am reading a murder mystery I am looking for enough clues so that I am not totally surprised by the ending, but I want my interest held to the very end. This book certainly filled these requirements. About 3/4 through, I commented that I either had the murder solved or I was lost in a school of red herrings. Actually for a change in this genre there were several different scenarios in play, each accounting for different misdeeds. I liked that simply because it allowed a far more realistic solution to everything.
Clark opened the way for several continuing stories. What exactly is Hildegard’s relationship to Hubert de Courcy and where is it going? Is he really a spy for the French? Setting the book in the 1380s, soon after the Peasant’s Revolt also permits a wonderfully complex social commentary as well as offering opportunity for violence and bloodshed.
Most of all I really liked Hildegard. In medieval times there were surely independent women, mostly treated as property of fathers or husbands. Surely the religious orders were a haven for these souls, providing them opportunities rarely found elsewhere in society.
I look forward to the second book in the series, and I hope there are many more.
