“Heretical Murder” has been released for the Kindle and Nook. It can also be read on any iPad, Android, Windows PC, Mac, or Blackberry device using the free Kindle Reading Apps for those platforms.

BETWEEN DUTY AND BLOOD…

Questionable matters? Strange deaths? Mysteries most foul? The cleverest man in 15th century England lives at Master Whittington’s Almshouse! Turn right off College Hill Street, go through the narrow Paternoster Passage, and knock on the third door on the left.

Dick Colop, student and scrivener, knows those directions well. They take him to the quiet study of Sire Pecock, priest of the Church and scholar of both man and book. A man has been cut down in the busy streets of London. The sheriff thinks it nothing more than a tavern brawl, but Colop knows that he never made it through the door.

A terrible accident or something worse? Sire Pecock will follow the dark and murderous ways of heresy to find the truth of sin.

Kindle Edition – Nook Edition

“Heretical Murder” was originally written for the Mammoth Book of More Historical Whodunits. (Which was published as the Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits in England; which is not to be confused with the previous volume of the exact same name which contained a completely different set of stories including “The Witch’s Tale”.  I take no responsibility for the vague ways of publishers.)

I don’t remember why the allowed word-count for this story was so high, but I took full advantage of it to write a story that roamed through the streets of London, keeping company with one of my favorite people from the 1400s – the scholar and churchman Reynold Pecock (otherwise called “Reginald” by modern scholars).

He had crossed my path more than once in my years of research and reading but never caught my interest until I attended a session at the International Congress of Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and heard two scholars – Stephen E. Lahey and Brent Moberley — discussing Bishop (as he became) Pecock.  Talking with them afterwards, I confessed that, rather than a legitimate scholar, I wrote medieval murder mysteries.  After what I read as a startled pause, they both declared with delight that Bishop Pecock would make a great detective.

Somewhat taken aback by the idea but intrigued by what they had been saying about him, I set to taking a longer, deeper look at Reynold Pecock, even going so far as to read some of his religious treatises in Middle English.  I found him a delightful, interesting, complex man and knew I had to use him in a story or – better yet — stories.
This particular one is chronologically the first of the three short stories in which he figures and finds him early in his career in London after a long while as a scholar and teacher at the University of Oxford.

The uprising that is a background to this story is historical, and it may be worthwhile to note that although the use of the word “pamphlet” forty years before the introduction of printing to England may jar with some readers, it is not an anachronism.  It is the actual word used in a contemporary chronicle regarding Lollard activities in London at this time.  More than that, the copying of books was indeed a commercial enterprise in London at the time, and a family named Colop was prominent in it.

– Margaret

LaVonne Neff, a very nice woman who also wrote Dame Frevisse: Someone You Should Know, has written a very charming review of Winter Heart.

This was originally meant to be part of the Winter Heart Blog Tour, but technical difficulties delayed things considerably. (Sorry about that, LaVonne!) So this can be thought of as a somewhat belated epilogue to the tour.

This audio book of Die Novizin (the German translation of The Novice’s Tale) has actually be available for awhile now, but I’ve only recently sorted out my author’s copy of it. With that in hand, however, I’m able to offer this sample from the beginning of the book courtesy of Youtube:

Due to unfortunate circumstances, I will NOT be appearing at the Historical Novel Society Conference in San Diego, CA. The panel I was hosting (Keeping a Series Fresh), however, is still happening. Medieval mystery author Priscilla Royal has graciously agreed to take over the hosting duties. I’ve turned over the materials I had prepared to her, and I think the panel should still be a great deal of fun.

Keeping a Series Fresh
Saturday, June 18th, 2011
8:30 – 9:30 AM

My apologies to anyone who is unduly inconvenienced by this. I would have dearly liked to go, but it just wasn’t possible this year.

– Margaret

Most of The Murderer’s Tale takes place at Minster Lovel, the church and manor house of the Lovell family. As I mentioned in my author’s note for the book, this is a real place. You can still visit the ruins, which are both beautiful and haunting:

It was strange to so recently revisit a place filled with such life and hope in The Murderer’s Tale and then see these beautiful but utterly different photographs from centuries far-removed.

– Margaret

The Lovell family and their manor of Minster Lovell were not made up for this story.  The effigy of Lord Lovell mentioned here is still in the parish church, and the ruins of their lovely manor house can still be visited beside the Windrush River under Wychwood in Oxfordshire.  I recommend it.

As for Lionel Knyvet’s affliction, epilepsy has been known throughout history.  It takes many different forms and is better understood now than ever before, with ways to often control the seizures, but through most of the centuries it was seen as either a mental disease – madness – or else as a spiritual one – possession by either demonic or shamanistic spirits, depending on the culture in which the person lived (and lives; such beliefs persist in many places) – or of course as madness brought on by demonic possession.

In medieval English law, madness was a recognized defense.  The legal ramifications of Lionel’s supposed crime, given he had apparently committed it while mad, were as compassionate as laid out in the story.  Instead of a legally-recognized madman’s property being seized into the king’s hands and lost after he was found guilty of committing a crime, his property would be held in trust for him, in the hope of him regaining his wits, whereupon his property and his freedom would be restored to him.

Of course the law also includes a warning to beware of someone feigning madness in order to avoid punishment, which goes to show that human nature holds true through the years – and that medieval lawyers and juries were no fools.

– Margaret

Kindle Edition / Nook Edition
Other Editions

“The Stone-Worker’s Tale” and “Winter Heart” have been added to the Master Chronology of Frevisse and Joliffe Books. Both stories take place in 1454, two years after the events of The Apostate’s Tale.

– Margaret

A book trailer for The Murderer’s Tale.

Other trailers:

The Outlaw’s Tale
The Bishop’s Tale
The Boy’s Tale

The Murderer’s Tale has been released for both the Kindle and the Nook. It can also be read on any iPad, Android, Windows PC, Mac, or Blackberry device using either the free Kindle Reading Apps or the free Nook Apps for those platforms. It will also be available through the iBookstore shortly, but Apple takes much longer to process new e-books than Amazon or B&N.

THROUGH A MURDERER’S EYES…

Caught under the tyrannical thumb of her new prioress, Dame Frevisse finds welcome relief in leaving St. Frideswide nunnery on pilgrimage. But the road brings with it unwelcome company: The wealthy Lionel Knyvet has been possessed by a foul demon. Seeking relief from the horrific terrors visited upon his body each fortnight, Lionel has dragged his entire household on an endless pilgrimage across the breadth and length of England. Frevisse wants nothing more than the peaceful bliss of travel, but must instead endure the incessant chattering of a mob.

Lionel’s possession, however, may only mask a darker sin. When the pilgrims make their way to the manor house at Minster Lovell, Frevisse begins to unwind the bitter poisons of jealousy and betrayal eating at the hearts of both Lionel and his brother Giles. Against her will, the innocent nun is drawn into the vilest depths of the human soul and there she unlocks the mysteries of a blackened heart. But even when the truth comes out, can justice be done? The pure of heart will find no peace when murder and death come knocking at the manor’s door…

Buy Kindle Edition / Buy Nook Edition

PRAISE FOR THE MURDERER’S TALE

“Frazer has created the most despicable villain since Iago.” – Patricia W. Julius, Detective as Historian

“Historical readers will be charmed with the story; feminists will be delighted with the strong female characters. Ellis Peters has a worthy successor in Margaret Frazer.” – Meritorious Mysteries

“Expertly captures the flavor of the period with vivid descriptions and creates dimensional characters true to the times.” – Rendezvous

“A diabolically smooth and logical frame-up… Frazer springs substantial surprises. A moving portrait of how afflictions torment body and mind and a meditation on selfless friendship. It’s a treat, with memorable characters and a thoughtful, bittersweet ending.” – S.M. Tyson, The Armchair Detective

The Murderer’s Tale was the last book that my then-co-author and I wrote together, before she gave up on medieval England and went to cozy needlework shop mysteries.  We planned the book together, meaning from the very first to tell the story from the murderer’s point of view, and thereby came the parting of our ways, I think.  She had always said she wanted to write light murder mysteries, murder mysteries that were essentially cheerful – what are now called cozies.  I seem to be of a darker nature; nothing about murder seems cozy to me, and when – as was our wont – I began the first draft of Murderer’s inside the title character’s head, it was a nasty place to be.  Given the crimes Mary and I had planned for him, how could it be otherwise?  Nor did he get any nicer as the book went on.  Unfortunately, he proved too much for Mary.  She hated him so much that she finally refused to have anything to do with his chapters at all.

Now I have said elsewhere that I don’t identify with only my main character – that I identify with all my characters, turning inward on myself to find some part of me that — if cultivated instead of bypassed – could become what this character is.  Then I explore that part of me, and it becomes the warp on which I weave a character.  So exploring and creating Giles was not a pleasant experience for me.  Nor was doing the same with Domina Alys in the next book.  But it seems to me that if I am going to write about murder, then if the story is going to be worth telling at all, I have to look at the ugliness within a murderer, and not only the ugliness within a murderer, but the cruel changes that ugliness makes in the lives of the people around him or her.  Hence, as Dame Frevisse is forced to deal with murders over the years, she grows and deepens.  And because, through her, I have had to look far closer and deeper in the dark hearts of murderers (meaning into the dark corners of my own heart, as it were), I’ve grown and changed, too, have come to value kindness and generosity of spirit with far more passion that before and have a very focused hatred of cruelty.

This leads to occasional odd moments, such as when – working at the rewrite of a later book in the series – I found myself railing at the murderer for the cruel, vile, treacherous way he had killed his victim.  How could he do such an ugly thing?  How could he . . .  Oh.  Wait.  I was the one who had written the scene that way.  The whole thing was my fault.

So maybe it’s best if you just forget what I’ve said above about me being part of all my characters.  It could make the next time we meet rather awkward if you find yourself wondering “Who is she today?”

– Margaret

We’re currently in the process of revising the website. Some links on the site will continue pointing to old versions of certain pages until new versions of those pages have been created. This may result in some broken links, so I apologize in advance for that.

If you’ve been an RSS subscriber, you’ll also want to update your RSS feed by clicking here and subscribing to the new feed.

Thanks for your patience!

– Margaret