Death of a Lady's Maid

Casebook of Doctor Simon Foreman #1

by Judith Cook

Set in 1592, a waterman finds the body of a young girl floating in the River Thames and takes it to Dr. Simon Forman, medical practitioner, caster of horoscopes and solver of mysteries. Aided by his trusty manservant he investigates, only to find his own life in danger. From the author of THE SLICING EDGE OF DEATH.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Fiction, Mystery

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 1998

About the author

Judith Cook was a lecturer in theatre at the University of Exeter. She wrote several mysteries based on the casebooks of Dr Simon Forman, an Elizabethan doctor and astrologer.

Reviews

[Myriam White · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's based on Dr. Simon Forman, a real Elizabethan herbalist and occultist. The characters were the main source of interest for me in this murder mystery. However, there are some historical inaccuracies. "She has a hoard of guinea coins" - which were not struck until a century after the time in which the book is set. The actions are predictable due to the way it was written - it doesn't allow you to guess, you're told... which takes a lot of depth away from a good mystery.

[Ellie Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a pleasure to re-read this! Judith Cook summons up Shakespearian London wonderfully in this involving mystery tale. Vividly written and wonderfully researched.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 1 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here& in August 2000.

Simon Forman was a real Elizabethan doctor, prominent enough to earn an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography and a biography by A.L. Rowse which mostly disagrees with the DNB entry. The series which starts with Death of a Lady's Maid makes him a detective in addition to his medical and astrological pursuits. This is an interesting premise (though it is not by any means the only historical crime story with a real detective or with a medical detective). The plot itself has a connection to themes found in the drama of the period. It centres around a body found in the Thames which is a young woman earlier treated by Forman. He discovers through post mortem examination that she was bound before being thrown into the river, so that the death was not the suicide it appeared to be. By bringing scandal to the wealthy family which employed the young woman as a lady's maid, Forman creates an enmity which could cause him a lot of problems as one lacking in influence by comparison. He has to solve the murder before he loses his livelihood.

The problem with Death of a Lady's Maid is that despite being an academic specialising in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, Cook has a really bland writing style. The novel is cardboard which never comes alive, and it reads like a pale imitation of Ellis Peters (who is not an author I admire). Cook is perhaps more knowledgeable about her chosen period, yet the background remains unconvincing for the same reasons that Peters' do: an inability to really think in a pre-twentieth century mindset.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ran across the name of Simon Forman in some historical (Elizabethan) reading around 2009, and then discovered this mystery series... Managed to find the first one, and then got them all used on-line because I couldn't find them locally. I loved this series, and then felt quite sad when I discovered the author had passed away, and there will never be more than five books...

[Diana Sandberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yet another set of mysteries based more or less on a real guy that nobody knows much about. This one was physician of sorts in Shakespeare’s time. The story works and I enjoyed the character but, I don’t know, maybe I’ve just been reading too much of this stuff lately.

[Kate Millin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this a more interesting read than the first one I read in this series (I am not reading them in order). A well put together tale set in my favourite Tudor historical period