1383, Southwark. The peace and quiet of St Erconwald’s, and Brother Athelstan’s preparations for Easter in his parish, are disrupted when William the weaver bursts in, seeking sanctuary for the death of the Ishmaelite, an evil moneylender. Sanctuary in the church prevents his arrest and execution for the murder, for a time at least, but soon his body is found, killed by an old pike-head. But the weaver was safely locked inside the church…

But Athelstan has more to deal with than that. Members of the Fishmongers Guild are being murdered across the city, in revenge it seems for a death the preceding year. All roads lead to the priory of St Osyth’s – and, it seems, to the late William the weaver…

Yes, you saw the title correctly, this isn’t out until next year, but I had a review copy and, hey, it’s Paul Doherty. I managed to wait a whole month  before reading it, and that took some effort. It’s no secret that Paul is one of my favourite authors and the Brother Athelstan series my favourite of his works, so any new appearance from the little friar and Sir John Cranston is a must-read for me.

I did pick it up to jump-start my November reading which had sagged a bit, but forgot that with Paul’s books, I keep wanting to put the book down to have a bit of a think, so it ended up taking a while – a very enjoyable while – to get through. There is so much incident here and so many things for Athelstan to sort out, as ever the reader isn’t quite sure where to look.

I would say, fans of the locked room might want to look elsewhere as the mechanics of the solitary locked church mystery here is a very small part of proceedings. It reminded me of an earlier idea from Paul – I won’t mention the book – but the rationale is quite different.

There’s some new ideas here as well, though. Given that the Fishmongers’ Guild is basically there to be cannon fodder for the killer, we don’t waste time getting to know them – indeed, at least one of the murders occurs off-page – but instead spend time getting to know the inhabitants of St Osyth’s , one of whom is clearly the murderer (if indeed there is only one killer).

We also get to meet the Queen Mother – the mother of Richard II – to add to the historical intrigue and while John of Gaunt doesn’t make an appearance, there is more movement in the background plots concerning his machinations.

The twenty-fourth Brother Athelstan mystery and the series is still going strong. If you want to try an historical mystery, then don’t waste your time in twelfth-century Shrewsbury with that herb-gatherer, but get yourself to fourteenth-century Southwark and the little friar. I’d say you wouldn’t want to leave but  it’s a dangerous place to live – but an exciting place to visit every now and then…

The Meadows Of Murder is out on 6^th January from Severn House in hardback and ebook. If you can’t wait that long, then The Nightingale Gallery (one of my favourite mystery novels) is only 99p as an ebook…