The Habit of Murder

Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew books now span twelve of his years and twenty-three volumes. When a series gets this long, I start to worry about its ending. Particularly since Matt's coming wedding will end his association with Michaelhouse College. The ending, though, hints at a possible loophole.

The Habit of Murder has a very modern feel, despite it's 14th Century setting.  Matt, Brother Michael, and college head Langelee set out to pay their respects to (and hope for a bequest from) the Lady of Clare. They're accompanied by scholars from her wealthy namesake college and from St. Thomas (Swinecroft), including the now bitter man who founded the former and heads the latter.

The Lady, as it turns out, is not dead, but the village is in turmoil.  Just like Cambridge, there's conflict between the townsfolk and the supporting institution, in this case the Lady's castle.  The central cause appears to be the local church, the fan vaulted nave of which has been appropriated by the Lady, and the new south wing of which has been left to the town. Also like Cambridge, there seem to be a lot of unexpected deaths (or maybe Matt just has the bad luck to frequently encounter corpses). The chief mason, a local lord, and various people from the castle recently died under suspicious circumstances. Add in a vicar and an entire abbey of monks who are former warriors (one a former associate of Langelee), a sociable hermit (who reminds me of the Monty Python sketch - "The thing about being a hermit is that you get to meet people"), a comfort and gossip loving "holy" anchorite walled up in the church, and the castle's steward's 24-year-old prankster twins and it looks like Gregory is in a comic mood.

Then someone murders one of the Cambridge delegation, along with the steward's wife (she's one of the few good people in the town or castle). We learn that Anne, the anchorite, did not choose her calling but was the castle nurse banished for performing an abortion on a rape victim, and that she'd provided her (relatively) safe services on other women seduced and abandoned, or raped, by the castle squires. Published as #MeToo was peaking, this feels prescient, and Matt's focus on the danger rather than the ethics of abortion echoes modern discussions of the risks of legal restrictions driving abortion underground.

These plot lines all seem to be going in different directions until the last 40 pages, when Matt and Michael find the truly surprising cause linking the dates. They bring peace to Clare after a scene worthy of a modern action movie, but with a loss to Michaelhosue.  A loss, however, that may lead to a more stable future for the institution which has been on the edge of dissolution since A Vein of Deceit.