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Kathryn Swinbrooke #4
The Book of Shadows
The Book of Shadows is the fourth novel in the acclaimed series featuring Kathryn Swinbrooke, medieval physician and chemist. It begins shortly after the murderous takeover of the throne by Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville in 1471, when blackmailers thrived by threatening detractors of the new king.
The ugliest threat to the decent people of Canterbury is the magus Tenebrae, who controls the Book of Shadows - a grimoire of spells and magic containing secrets about the dead and the living. When Tenebrae is murdered, Kathryn Swinbrooke is summoned to solve the crime, or else risk the transfer of her love, Colum Murtagh, far away to London. However, the secrets stretch all the way to the King and Queen themselves, and everyone is a suspect - especially Tenebrae's last visitors, a nervous group of goldsmiths from London. Tenebrae is dead but the Book of Shadows still exerts his power, and its new owners will die for it. The suspects fall victim, one by one, to violent deaths, and Swinbrooke most solve the mystery before the Book of Shadows closes on them all.
The ugliest threat to the decent people of Canterbury is the magus Tenebrae, who controls the Book of Shadows - a grimoire of spells and magic containing secrets about the dead and the living. When Tenebrae is murdered, Kathryn Swinbrooke is summoned to solve the crime, or else risk the transfer of her love, Colum Murtagh, far away to London. However, the secrets stretch all the way to the King and Queen themselves, and everyone is a suspect - especially Tenebrae's last visitors, a nervous group of goldsmiths from London. Tenebrae is dead but the Book of Shadows still exerts his power, and its new owners will die for it. The suspects fall victim, one by one, to violent deaths, and Swinbrooke most solve the mystery before the Book of Shadows closes on them all.
195 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
46 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 5, 2023
I first read this one many years ago and as I now have the series this is a reread.
A great locked room mystery and we are transported back in time to a very different world.
England has a new monarch but old sins always haunt.
A great fourth outing with Kathryn and Colum.
A great locked room mystery and we are transported back in time to a very different world.
England has a new monarch but old sins always haunt.
A great fourth outing with Kathryn and Colum.
July 4, 2023
The Book of Shadows
#4 in the Kathryn Swinbrooke series
By Paul Doherty
Reviewed July 7, 2023
The Book of Shadows is a medieval mystery by that most prolific of authors, Paul Doherty. It is the 4th in a series of, I believe, 7 books, featuring stories that are set in Canterbury during the Wars of the Roses, and were originally published under the pen name Celia L. Grace.
I haven’t read the first three, but decided to jump ahead to this one when I read the description that included someone blackmailing Big Ed…I’m sorry, I mean Edward IV.
It is 1471 and Edward IV is back on the throne after a short exile. Edward’s queen, the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville, has called upon a necromancer who calls himself Tenebrae which literally means darkness, because she needs to know about the king’s past. As Elizabeth muses, “In matters of war and statecraft, Edward of England was as magnificent as he was in bed, but in the affairs of the heart, he was indiscreet.”
The queen sends Theobald Foliot, her squire and personal equerry, to Canterbury to retrieve a book in the possession of Tenebrae, a book that contains information that would be dangerous to the current king, his queen, and her family.
Back in Canterbury, Kathryn Swinbrooke, a physician, leech and apothecary, is sent for. A man is dying, but Kathryn’s skills cannot save him. Before he breathes his last, this stranger tells how he was once a magus like Tenebrae and had come to Canterbury to retrieve the grimoire of Honorius. “Many years ago in Paris I was a master necromancer,” he says. “I owned a grimoire and used it for great evil, but lost it to another magician, a man with a black heart and no soul, called Tenebrae.” The grimoire is more than a collection of spells and incantations, but contains damaging tittle-tattle and gossip Tenebrae has collected over the years.
Kathryn and her companion, Irishman Colum Murtagh, King’s Commissioner in Canterbury and keeper of the royal stables at Kingsmead, go to see Tenebrae only to learn his is dead, a crossbow bolt embedded in his throat. At the necromancer’s home, they encounter Foliot, who lets them know that the queen wants the grimoire and doesn’t try to disguise the fact that anyone who stands in her way will not be kindly dealt with.
But there is a third death. A local man named Peter Talbot is dead. His wife and family believe it’s magic, and an old woman who Talbot recently evicted from her cottage is accused of the crime, having confessed to casting a spell on the deceased.
Who killed Tenebrae, and what is the secret hidden within the pages of the grimoire? Is there a connection between the death of Peter Talbot and the death of Tenebrae, or are the two events unrelated? These and other questions, and murders, make up the story of The Book of Shadows.
Tenebrae, according to the author’s notes at the back of the book, is modeled loosely on Bolingbroke, the great necromancer of fifteenth-century England. About the Woodvilles, the author describes them 15th century “robber barons of the first order: brilliant, brave, charismatic and totally ruthless.”
And now I want to go back and read the earlier volumes in this series!
As for the secret?
Spoiler alert! Don’t read any further if you want to be surprised.
Okay, you’ve been warned!
It turns out that King Edward IV was previously and secretly married to a woman named (drum roll, please) Eleanor Butler, and was still legally married to her when he also secretly married Elizabeth Woodville. And those of us who know our history of late 15th century England know that this secret marriage (or pre-contract) is what gave Richard of Gloucester the right to take the throne as Richard III.
#4 in the Kathryn Swinbrooke series
By Paul Doherty
Reviewed July 7, 2023
The Book of Shadows is a medieval mystery by that most prolific of authors, Paul Doherty. It is the 4th in a series of, I believe, 7 books, featuring stories that are set in Canterbury during the Wars of the Roses, and were originally published under the pen name Celia L. Grace.
I haven’t read the first three, but decided to jump ahead to this one when I read the description that included someone blackmailing Big Ed…I’m sorry, I mean Edward IV.
It is 1471 and Edward IV is back on the throne after a short exile. Edward’s queen, the beautiful Elizabeth Woodville, has called upon a necromancer who calls himself Tenebrae which literally means darkness, because she needs to know about the king’s past. As Elizabeth muses, “In matters of war and statecraft, Edward of England was as magnificent as he was in bed, but in the affairs of the heart, he was indiscreet.”
The queen sends Theobald Foliot, her squire and personal equerry, to Canterbury to retrieve a book in the possession of Tenebrae, a book that contains information that would be dangerous to the current king, his queen, and her family.
Back in Canterbury, Kathryn Swinbrooke, a physician, leech and apothecary, is sent for. A man is dying, but Kathryn’s skills cannot save him. Before he breathes his last, this stranger tells how he was once a magus like Tenebrae and had come to Canterbury to retrieve the grimoire of Honorius. “Many years ago in Paris I was a master necromancer,” he says. “I owned a grimoire and used it for great evil, but lost it to another magician, a man with a black heart and no soul, called Tenebrae.” The grimoire is more than a collection of spells and incantations, but contains damaging tittle-tattle and gossip Tenebrae has collected over the years.
Kathryn and her companion, Irishman Colum Murtagh, King’s Commissioner in Canterbury and keeper of the royal stables at Kingsmead, go to see Tenebrae only to learn his is dead, a crossbow bolt embedded in his throat. At the necromancer’s home, they encounter Foliot, who lets them know that the queen wants the grimoire and doesn’t try to disguise the fact that anyone who stands in her way will not be kindly dealt with.
But there is a third death. A local man named Peter Talbot is dead. His wife and family believe it’s magic, and an old woman who Talbot recently evicted from her cottage is accused of the crime, having confessed to casting a spell on the deceased.
Who killed Tenebrae, and what is the secret hidden within the pages of the grimoire? Is there a connection between the death of Peter Talbot and the death of Tenebrae, or are the two events unrelated? These and other questions, and murders, make up the story of The Book of Shadows.
Tenebrae, according to the author’s notes at the back of the book, is modeled loosely on Bolingbroke, the great necromancer of fifteenth-century England. About the Woodvilles, the author describes them 15th century “robber barons of the first order: brilliant, brave, charismatic and totally ruthless.”
And now I want to go back and read the earlier volumes in this series!
As for the secret?
Spoiler alert! Don’t read any further if you want to be surprised.
Okay, you’ve been warned!
It turns out that King Edward IV was previously and secretly married to a woman named (drum roll, please) Eleanor Butler, and was still legally married to her when he also secretly married Elizabeth Woodville. And those of us who know our history of late 15th century England know that this secret marriage (or pre-contract) is what gave Richard of Gloucester the right to take the throne as Richard III.
October 11, 2022
Very good story
March 5, 2023
This one was really, really good!
I enjoy the challenge of these stories. They are well crafted , jam packed full of Canterbury town details, and Canterbury PEOPLE details! After reading all 7 in this series there is some clear repetitions and scenes and said details and that is not a bad thing...I feel I am getting to know Canterbury and its people and environs better and better. I really like this author 's descriptions of the relationships between the main characters ... They are evolving and growing over time. Would so, however, love to know more about Columbia and his past and where he spends such a substantial amount of his time...where is this place with the horses and the stables...when does he have time to spend with his beloved horses when he spends such an inordinate time either investigating with Kathryn and others or in other of the king's business? Dies he have it spend time honing his warrior skills? Does he have close friends? Who is Holbech? How does he, being left so often to hold down the fort at thus build site and stables, Manage it all? Anyway...every book can do with some improvements...this one did not need many! Sort of sad to be reading the 7th book next...is it the last one? Glad there are more series to read by this man. Look forward to more of the series...Hugh Corbett, Kathryn Swinbrooke, and all the others I have yet to read. Happy Reading!
I enjoy the challenge of these stories. They are well crafted , jam packed full of Canterbury town details, and Canterbury PEOPLE details! After reading all 7 in this series there is some clear repetitions and scenes and said details and that is not a bad thing...I feel I am getting to know Canterbury and its people and environs better and better. I really like this author 's descriptions of the relationships between the main characters ... They are evolving and growing over time. Would so, however, love to know more about Columbia and his past and where he spends such a substantial amount of his time...where is this place with the horses and the stables...when does he have time to spend with his beloved horses when he spends such an inordinate time either investigating with Kathryn and others or in other of the king's business? Dies he have it spend time honing his warrior skills? Does he have close friends? Who is Holbech? How does he, being left so often to hold down the fort at thus build site and stables, Manage it all? Anyway...every book can do with some improvements...this one did not need many! Sort of sad to be reading the 7th book next...is it the last one? Glad there are more series to read by this man. Look forward to more of the series...Hugh Corbett, Kathryn Swinbrooke, and all the others I have yet to read. Happy Reading!
July 24, 2021
3,5*
Libro bastante entretenido de muy ágil lectura. Se trata en realidad de un típico "asesinato en habitación cerrada", con su elenco de sospechosos y la "detective" (en este caso es una médica medieval) que desempeña el papel de investigadora y esclarecedora de lo ocurrido. Hay mucho hincapié en los secretos, un buen protagonismo de fondo de la magia negra, y varias triquiñuelas.
La protagonista es muy carismática, y el esquema del libro es lo que podemos esperar de una historia de misterio de este tipo: ¿quién lo ha hecho y cómo?
Lo único que me ha convencido menos ha sido la ambientación medieval que, si bien por una parte la ciudad y sus partes están bien descritas y la historia está apoyada en hechos verídicos y datos costumbristas; por otra, el diálogo y el comportamiento de los personajes me transportaban más bien a siglos posteriores (con un toque a principios del s.XIX) Sin embargo, la historia es tan entretenida de leer que no me ha importado particularmente.
En fin, un libro rápido y entretenido donde los amantes de las novelas detectivescas y de misterio se encontrarán como en casa.
Libro bastante entretenido de muy ágil lectura. Se trata en realidad de un típico "asesinato en habitación cerrada", con su elenco de sospechosos y la "detective" (en este caso es una médica medieval) que desempeña el papel de investigadora y esclarecedora de lo ocurrido. Hay mucho hincapié en los secretos, un buen protagonismo de fondo de la magia negra, y varias triquiñuelas.
La protagonista es muy carismática, y el esquema del libro es lo que podemos esperar de una historia de misterio de este tipo: ¿quién lo ha hecho y cómo?
Lo único que me ha convencido menos ha sido la ambientación medieval que, si bien por una parte la ciudad y sus partes están bien descritas y la historia está apoyada en hechos verídicos y datos costumbristas; por otra, el diálogo y el comportamiento de los personajes me transportaban más bien a siglos posteriores (con un toque a principios del s.XIX) Sin embargo, la historia es tan entretenida de leer que no me ha importado particularmente.
En fin, un libro rápido y entretenido donde los amantes de las novelas detectivescas y de misterio se encontrarán como en casa.
June 15, 2023
a deep and dark mystery.
Necromancy and sorcery are evil, but not as harmful as blackmail! A blackmailer gets justice meted out to him by his victims, but which one is most responsible? What hold did he have over each of the pilgrims? A few other mysteries along the way - did old Mathilda curse Sir Robert and cause his death? Why isn’t the carpenter getting better with Katherine’s potions. Mistress Swinbrooke figures it all out, keeps the Irish,an within an arm’s reach and her household running efficiently.
Necromancy and sorcery are evil, but not as harmful as blackmail! A blackmailer gets justice meted out to him by his victims, but which one is most responsible? What hold did he have over each of the pilgrims? A few other mysteries along the way - did old Mathilda curse Sir Robert and cause his death? Why isn’t the carpenter getting better with Katherine’s potions. Mistress Swinbrooke figures it all out, keeps the Irish,an within an arm’s reach and her household running efficiently.
February 11, 2024
Quite liked this 194p quickie, my first in the Katherine Swinbrook series. Loved the colorful look at everyday life in Cambridge of 1471, Nice interactions between Katherine and her servants & household as well as her patients and townsfolk. In the course of the novel, besides solving the “case” of the murdered magus and missing Book of Shadows, the also saves an old woman accused of witchcraft by proving the true cause of a death that had been attributed to a curse by the “witch”.
Read for Wheel of Hist Myst for Historical Mystery Lovers Group
Read for Wheel of Hist Myst for Historical Mystery Lovers Group
June 22, 2021
Άκρως ενδιαφέρον όπως και τα άλλα τρία. Δυστυχώς δεν υπάρχει συνέχεια στην μετάφραση καθώς υπάρχουν άλλα τρία βιβλία στην σειρά που μάλλον εξιστόρηση την συνέχεια. Πολυ ωραία απεικόνιση της εποχής από το τι τρώγανε μέχρι τι αρρώστιες υπήρχαν και τι φαρμακα έπαιρναν. Πολυ ενδιαφέρον ιστορικά και κοινωνικά καθώς δείχνει τις διαφορές στις τάξεις.
April 24, 2023
Kurz, knapp und sehr unterhaltsam, wie immer. Ein bisschen mehr Hofintrigen und Mittelalterskandale wären toll gewesen, wir befinden uns immerhin mitten in den Rosenkriegen! So viele Leichen im Keller!
August 7, 2017
Marvellous
Again the reader is held in a finely spun web so one is bent on finishing the book. Marvellous writing.
Again the reader is held in a finely spun web so one is bent on finishing the book. Marvellous writing.
October 5, 2018
A locked room mystery set in Medieval Canterbury.
May 1, 2021
Well plotted and neatly tied up in a quick concise storyline.
September 1, 2010
Oh, the pressure of daintily stepping on the toes of the Court with an infusion of magic (?) challenges Kathryn's Holmesian abilities. Truly a delight to read as Kathryn solves this inexplicable mystery.
July 28, 2023
Hmm, Band 4 hat mich ein bisschen enttäuscht. Die zwei Fälle hatten zu viel Ähnlichkeit mit denen aus Band 3. Und zwischen Kathryn und Colum ging auch nicht so richtig was weiter. So langsam schleichen sich für mich zu viele Wiederholungen ein.
November 14, 2008
Another good series that combines historical fiction and mystery. I also enjoy the female "detective" in this series.
Read
January 26, 2013excellent
December 8, 2015
I usually like all of Paul Doherty's books, and this was one was no exception. This is a good series.
July 10, 2014
Another locked room murder. A very good description of the times. A very good series.
Read
July 24, 2018Doherty doesn’t disappoint
I’ve enjoyed all of Paul Doherty’s stories regardless of the nom dé plumes he uses. Each is tightly woven in plot and well researched. Being a big fan of British history, I appreciate the work that goes into transporting the reader to the time of the story and making the reader feel like they are inside the story and era.
I’ve enjoyed all of Paul Doherty’s stories regardless of the nom dé plumes he uses. Each is tightly woven in plot and well researched. Being a big fan of British history, I appreciate the work that goes into transporting the reader to the time of the story and making the reader feel like they are inside the story and era.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews