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Miscellaneous A Summer of Discontent by Susanna Gregory $7.95 / Trafalgar Sqare / 2003 Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael are back on the case in this eighth installment of Susanna Gregory's medieval mystery series. The story begins when the steward of Lady Blanche de Wake is found dead in the River Ouse, and her rival, the Bishop of Ely, is accused of his murder. Desperate to evade the hangman's noose, the bishop asks Brother Michael to clear his name. As Bartholomew and Michael arrive at the monastery at the Isle of Ely, they find that there is more afoot than a simple murder. Corruption is rife in the city as the greedy monks withhold food and alms from an overworked and under-fed peasant population. A simmering feud between the monastery and the local parish is also about to explode into insurrection. Worse, they soon discover that the noblewoman's steward is neither the first, nor the last victim of a brutal murderer. Gregory leads her readers through an intricately woven mystery. Through her words, the city of Ely in 1354-from the solemn extravagance of the monastery to the griminess of the city taverns-comes to life. The author's attention to everyday medieval life also draws the reader into Bartholomew's hunt for a killer. But 14th-century Ely is hardly an ideal world and Gregory is not reluctant to roughing up her characters, often blurring the line between the heroes and their antagonists. Admirers of the previous chronicle, An Order for Death, will also thrill as Tysilia, one of the suspects from that book, returns. Overly promiscuous and in lust with Brother Michael, she is a capricious character about whom Gregory clearly relishes writing. Followers of previous Matthew Bartholomew chronicles will delight in A Summer of Discontent while new readers will surely become fans. By the last page, both will yearn for the next Bartholomew book in the series. —Katerie Prior

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