‘The Night of the Wolf’ by Cassandra Clark

Published by ‎Severn House,
6 June 2022.
ISBN: 978-1-44830666-4 (HB)

The Night of the Wolf is the final novel of Cassandra Clark’s The Broken Kingdom Trilogy featuring Brother Chandler, a friar in the order of St Serapion. Following on immediately from its predecessor The Day of the Serpent, Chandler has escaped from the dangers of London and is looking for a safe place to lodge a copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales with which he has been entrusted by the poet’s household, a work considered heretical by Henry IV’s ruthless regime. He is ambushed and wakes up in Chester in the house of John Willoughby, a wool merchant and a stranger to him. Willoughby’s men rescued Chandler and the merchant claims to despise the usurper king but, as with everyone at this turbulent time, can Chandler trust him? Burning at the stake awaits him if he is found with the manuscript. To make matters worse, Willoughby’s young wife falls to her death. An accident, it seems – but is it? Chandler is enlisted to help discover exactly what happened. To make his job more difficult, a girl who works in Willoughby’s household then disappears.

As with the murders in The Day of the Serpent, the fates of the two women are only one theme of the book. Chandler has other things on his mind as well as that and finding a safe place for Chaucer’s work, not least the problem of his relationship with Mattie, a maid in Chaucer’s household, which was left dangling at the end of the previous novel. Chaucer’s own whereabouts are also unknown. Chandler seems to be constantly on the move: he travels between Chester, Dieulacres Abbey, London and Wales (even meeting Glyn Dwr, the ‘Wolf from the West’ himself), often in possession of a manuscript or letters, either of which would seal his fate if discovered, and it is the background of mistrust and the simmering brutality of the tyrannical regime which dominates the novel as it did its predecessor. Chandler cannot afford to take anyone at face value.

Characters give way to musings on contemporary life. Chandler ponders the state of the country and Henry’s mindset in particular: ‘We have our own thoughts, desires and intentions, he [Chandler] thought, and does he [Henry] not know that? We all love as best we can despite taxes and laws and the failed expectations of those we care about. Does he imagine he is any different to us? Are we not all on the same journey? Do we not all finish in the same place, whatever our social status, our worldly wealth, our fame?’ Aethelstan, Chandler’s young comrade, tries to come to terms with having killed to protect his friends: ‘We should not kill because, maybe, like everybody, we all have the idea we’re doing the right thing – because everybody believes they’re doing the right thing, even fake King Henry, whether they are or not .... I can’t see what makes them [Henry’s men-at-arms] think it’s a good idea to kill somebody who’s unarmed just because they’re told to. Maybe I’m as wrong as they are?’ Chandler sums up the atmosphere of the time: ‘I’m angry because I’m helpless against evil and it offends me to the soul.’

The Night of the Wolf is a worthy conclusion to this thoroughly enjoyable trilogy. Early on I wondered quite where things were heading, but eventually all the loose ends are tied up. And what happens to Chandler and Mattie? And what has become of Chaucer? It’s not for me to say.
------
Reviewer: David Whittle

Cassandra Clark was born in the East Riding of Yorkshire where she grew up in a village near the ancient medieval market town of Beverley. For several years she wrote scripts for the theatre, radio and television as well as contemporary fiction while tutoring at the Open University. She won a Directors' Guild Award for a stage play and ran a lunch-time theatre in a Tudor inn in York.  She is the author of the acclaimed series featuring Abbess Hildegard. There are 13 books in the series. Her most recent series features Brother Chandler. The latest book is The Night of the Wolf, was published 6 June 2023.  Her childhood spent in Yorkshire was her inspiration for the series.

https://www.cassandraclark.co.uk

David Whittle  is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.