You can't go wrong with a Brother Athelstan mystery. Certainly sad in a few parts but thrilling in others. ( )

1381 and it would seem that the sins of the past have come to London as a series of brutal murders of women have been discovered. Does this have an connection to the mysterious explosion aboard a ship heading for Calais, killing all the crew. Then more deaths are perpetrated. Sir John Cranston and Brother Athelstan investigate.
An interesting and enjoyable well-written mystery with these two delightful characters. The book can easily be read as a standalone story.
A NetGalley Book ( )

Let loose "Canes Belli: the Dogs of War!"

Once again the medieval site of of 1381 London becomes the backdrop for another horrific Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston murder investigation.
Truly, with this particular spate of grotesque killings it seems like the minions of hell have escaped the netherworld to inhabit the darkness of the city. Prostitutes have been found dispatched, stripped and crowned with red wigs and floating on the Thames in sciffs.
Meanwhile, a king's war cog making for Calais has blown up and there are rumors of a figure adorned with a red wig having been seen. These happenings seem linked. But how?
As Athelston and Cranston move through the dank streets seeking answers I felt like I'd descended into a Dantesque Inferno and as the plot proceeds I'm not far off. The red bewigged figures harken some twenty years back to the rape and pillage of Normandy in 1363 by "mercenary free companies, one in particular, ‘The Godless’, who took their name from the war barge" they’d served on. It's seems they were led by a fearful secretive figure referred to as Oriflamme. And now that likeness has arisen in London. This becomes even more worrying for Athelstan as he learns that some of his flock appeared to have had connections to those terrible times.
Doherty's descriptive narrative is both wonderful and harrowing as Athelstan and Cranston conduct their business through "tangles of filthy, reeking alleyways" and "narrow streets" and places where they rubbed shoulders with, "the screams of half-naked children dancing around the midden heaps ... funeral processions ... [and] wedding parties thronged in alehouses. A gang of mummers tried to attract an audience with their grisly depiction of the martyrdom of St Agnes. Smells billowed backwards and forwards, the delicate sweetness of the pastry shops mingling with the rank odour of cheap fat sizzling in pans and skillets set over moveable stoves."
Hieronymus Bosch illustrations come alive!
As always Athelstan worries about his beloved flock at St Erconwald's in Southwark who hide their own secrets and fears. Some that impinge on this latest visitation from death's dark door.
So we have war criminals, a series of bizarre murders, the destruction of a royal cog, threatened parishioners, strangers in Athelstan's parish and a selection of mysterious denizens who ply their trade on the Thames. Oh, and did I mention the vengeful French?
Alrogether, another gratifying and gripping trip through the dark side of medieval London.

A Severn ARC via NetGalley ( )