‘Litany of Lies’ by Sarah Hawkswood

Published by Allison & Busby,
5 December 2024.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-3108-4 (HB)

Despite the twelfth century setting Sarah Hawkswood’s Bradecote and Catchpoll series has all the hallmarks of a police procedural. Hugh Bradecote, undersheriff of Worcester, is the officer running the investigation, with perception, compassion and dignity. Serjeant Catchpoll is the experienced man on the ground, every bit as observant and quick-witted as his boss. Walkelin, Catchpoll’s apprentice, is shaping up to be a capable detective in his own right and is treated as one by his seniors.

The doughty trio are bidden to Evesham Abbey to look into the suspicious death of Walter the Steward, who has been found at the bottom of a newly dug well pit. In the absence of forensics, keen eyes suffice, and it becomes plain that he was hit on the head with a dressed stone and thrown into the pit.

There is no shortage of suspects. Not only has the steward been mistreating his young wife; he has been cheating both the abbey and the local residents by holding back some of rents it was his job to collect. In addition, there is considerable friction between the abbey and the nearby castle, which lies under the jurisdiction of Bradecote’s boss, William de Beauchamp, the local Sheriff, who cares more for his own comfort than the rule of law. It seems that almost everyone in town bore a grudge against the dead man. 

A second murder seems linked to the first, and a vicious assault on a ferryman a few miles away adds more tangles to an already knotty case.

Sarah Hawkswood’s meticulously researched series is never short of vivid characters. This time I especially enjoyed Cuthbert, the least popular man in the alehouse because of his aromatic employment; Alnoth the Handless, born with two deformed arms but the sharpest eyes and ears in the vicinity, Maerwynn, the steward’s teenage wife, who is quiet and downtrodden at first but  blossoms like an English rose once she is free from her coercive husband: warring neighbours Oswald and Wulfram; and de Cormolain. the lazy and languid commander of the castle across the bridge, and Bradecote’s sworn enemy.

The locations, too, are richly wrought. The dank, uninviting castle contrasts with the warm, welcoming abbey. The abandoned cell of Mother Placida, late anchoress, yields up a wealth of clues to the attentive Walkelin. The river which loops round Evesham is the domain of Kenelm the ferryman, a key witness.

There’s a little of everything here, all wrapped up in dialogue which brings the characters to life and a wealth of historical background that draws the reader effortlessly back into the time of King Stephen. Fans of both crime and historical fiction will find plenty to entertain them in Bradecote and Catchpoll’s latest case. Long may they continue
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Sarah Hawkswood read Modern History at Oxford University and specialised in Military History and Theory of War. She turned from writing military history to mediaeval murder mysteries set in the turmoil of The Anarchy in the mid 12thC, all set in Worcestershire, where she now lives. The Bradecote & Catchpoll series began with Servant of Death (previously published as The Lord Bishop's Clerk) set in Pershore Abbey. The second, Ordeal by Fire, is set in Worcester itself, and there are already another five written. Writing is intrinsic to who she is, and she claims she gets 'grumpy' when there is not another manuscript on the go. Her aim is to create a 'world', one in which the reader can become immersed, and with an accurate historical context, not 'dressing up'. Sarah Hawkswood is a pen name. 

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction