Shroud for the Archbishop (Sister Fidelma Series #2)

by Peter Tremayne

Overview

Wighard, Archbishop designate of Canterbury, has been found dead, garrotted in his chambers in Rome's Lateran Palace in the autumn of A.D. 664. His murderer seems apparent to all, since an Irish religieux was arrested by the palace guards as he fled Wighard's chamber, but the monk denies responsibility for the crime, and the treasures missing from Wighard's chambers are nowhere to be found.

The bishop in charge of affairs at the Lateran Palace suspects a political motive and is wary of charging someone without independent evidence. So he asks Sister Fidelma of the Celtic Church to look into Wighard's death. Fidelma (an advocate of the Brehon Court), working with Brother Eadulf of the Roman Church, quickly finds herself with very few clues, too many motives, a trail strewn with bodies--and very little time before the killer strikes again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466814028
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/15/1996
Series:	Sister Fidelma Series , #2
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
Sales rank:	395,167
File size:	307 KB

About the Author

Peter Tremayne is the fiction pseudonym for Peter Beresford Ellis, a world-reknowned Celtic scholar with over 20 non-fiction books on various aspects of the ancient Celtic World. He lives in London, England.

PETER TREMAYNE is a pseudonym of Peter Berresford Ellis, a renowned scholar who has written extensively on the ancient Celts and the Irish. As Tremayne, he is best known for his stories and novels featuring Fidelma of Cashel, beginning with Absolution by Murder. He lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

Series protagonist Sister Fidelma of Cashel (Act of Mercy) attempts to save her Saxon monk friend, Brother Eadulf, from wrongful execution. A faithful rendering of life and justice in seventh-century Ireland. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Life in late-seventh-century Ireland can be rife with conflict, but you'd never know it from Sister Fidelma's endlessly pedantic approach to crime. Fidelma (Act of Mercy, 2001, etc.), a royal lawyer, races to a rival kingdom to rescue a friend and the friend's brother, the King of Cashel, from an imminent hanging. Saxon Brother Eadulf has been summarily tried for the rape and murder of a novice at the Abbey of the Blessed Maedoc. Ancient Irish tradition forbids capital punishment, but the Abbey and the kingdom of Muman have come under the pernicious (in Fidelma is and Tremayne's undisguised opinion) influence of the Roman Penitentials, the punitive code of justice that precedes our own. In arguing for Eadulf's life, Fidelma's also asserting the superiority of the humane Irish tradition by means of tedious legal interpretations, with ancient Irish words masquerading as stirring oratory. Fortunately for Eadulf, however, her arguments bully the Muman King into allowing her to investigate. At the Abbey, Fidelma meets the power-hungry Abbess Fainder, a Roman convert and a firm believer in Eadulf's guilt, bolstered by an eyewitness and a bloody piece of the victim's robe found on the suspect. The judge, Cashel's old enemy Bishop Forbassach, seems equally convinced of the Saxon's guilt and loyal to the Abbess. Only the stewardess of the Abbey, Sister Etromma, seems immune to the Abbess's charisma. Tremayne's history is intellectually stimulating. If only he were as interested in humanizing Fidelma as in educating readers on the glories of ancient Irish civilization.

Kirkus Reviews