I have now read 18 of the books in this series and will read the remaining few. They are a bit long and somewhat similar in that the ending is always a bit farcical because of so much happening all at once. However, I really love the setting - mid 1300s Cambridge, England and the characters. The main protagonist is Matthew Bartholomew, a university lecturer in medicine and a town physician. He is quite serious, honest and ethical while everyone else is crazy, dishonest or otherwise more interesting than Bartholomew. He works closely with fellow academic, Michael, a very overweight Monk who is always hungry. Together they are constantly getting in and out of scrapes while they solve the latest murders. The plot is quite detailed but it moves along at a good pace for me, anyway. ( )

Poorly written, run of the mill mystery. Bought it to read on a flight, regretted finishing it ( )

This addition to the Matthew Bartholomew series is good, but I thought it not quite as good as others in this series. There are even more deaths than usual in this book, and Matthew and Michael are hard-pressed to keep up with the bodies that keep turning up in the strangest places. One of Cambridge's more prominent citizens has donated an old inn to the university for a common library. It causes acrimony in the community because some of the scholars are not for this plan. Then there are rumours of French spies and a large militant band of smugglers in the area. All of these forces together have put the town on edge. Matt, Michael and their friend Sheriff Tulyet have to work together to thwart all these threats and find a killer that is on the loose. There is certainly a lot of action in the book, but I found it a bit difficult to follow all the story lines. But, as usual, Ms. Gregory uses real people and events to flesh out her books. They make 14 century Cambridge, England come alive. I love Matthew and Brother Michael. They are such real characters and it's always fun to see what troubles they get into. ( )

Susanne Gregory has produced another excellent tale of Bartholomew and his fat, greedy friend Michael, as they join up to solve yet another medieval mystery.

Gregory has widened the scope of her two medieval sleuths in the past three or four novels. Their stage increasingly encroaches on geo-political themes of the times, the enemies they come up against having bigger motives than those contained with the personal microcosm of a flourishing town.

Bartholomew can be an irritating procrastinator, unable to make a decision until it is almost too late, but he manages to achieve his objective eventually. I'd like to see Matt and Michael take a trip to Oxford, do a bit of 'Morse and Lewis', have Matt resolve the Mathilde issue.

The Historical Note in each instalment is a delight to read, as we realise all these characters are drawn from real people and real events.

I always look forward to the next adventure with these two sleuths, who have become old friends. ( )

Not the best of the series, but still a quality read. Its pretty clear that this great series reached its peak around about between the 7th & 10th books and since then has settled into a steady plateau of fairly predictable but still entertaining writing. Its still good enough that I grab each new addition as soon as it becomes available, but its no longer as gripping as the earlier ones. Gregory has to be commended for moving her series periodically out of Cambridge to other cities, including Lincoln, Ely and Peterborough, which helps to keep it fresh. As always, the most interesting charracter in the book continues to be not the vapid and timorous Bartholomew, but the University Proctor, would-be agent of the Bishop of Ely and all-round gourmand Brother Michael. He is an intriguing character with great depth, and it is to be hoped that someday Gregory moves him away from Cambridge and the tepid company of Bartholomew and expolres the darker and more secretive part of him that is often hinted at, but rarely surfaces in the current books.

This is a good read. The plot as always is intricate, the characters are interesting, varied, all have their own stories and are frequently bellicose and opinionated enough so as to force themselves out of the book and demand for those stories to be to be heard. And as always the brilliantly-captured background of medieval Cambridge which provides so much colour is there to be savoured. ( )