The Widows Guild - Anna Castle

    2015; 325 pages.  Book 3 (out of 8) in the “Francis Bacon Mystery” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Historical Mystery; England, Historical Fiction.  Laurels: 2017 Historical Novel Society Awards (Longlisted).  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    London, August 29, 1588.  A city in turmoil.  Religious fervor runs rampant.

 

    Queen Elizabeth 1 sits on the throne, and England has converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism.  It is not a good time to be a Catholic.  There’s even an official body, the Recusancy Committee, whose job it is to probe the loyalties of known Catholics.  If you’re found to be more loyal to the Pope than to the Crown, it’s imprisonment for you.

 

    It’s also Alice Trumpington’s (aka “Trumpet”) wedding night.  She’s not looking forward to it.  Her husband-to-be, Viscount Surdeval, is old and in frail health, and she’s putting off consummating the marriage for as long as possible.  She’s marrying strictly for money and nobility.

 

    Alas, Viscount Surdeval dies on his wedding night!  Under very suspicious circumstances.  Maybe Trumpet did it.  But no, she wasn’t even in the bedroom that evening.  She spent the night in a separate room in the estate.  With another man, Thomas Clarady.

 

    Not exactly the best alibi to have, is it?

 

What’s To Like...

    The Widows Guild is the third book in Anna Castle’s engaging “Francis Bacon Mystery” series, in which the famous physicist is reimagined as a royal investigator.  Francis is part of a legal society put together by Queen Elizabeth herself to do investigative work on behalf of her and other upper-class gentlepersons.

 

    Since Viscount Surdeval was a Nobleman, his fellow Upper-Crusters are quite anxious to know how and why he died on his wedding night, and assign Francis to that task.  I liked that he’s not a super-sleuth, but rather is a nerdy individual who, via questions and observations, hopes to logically figure out what happened and who did it.

 

    This series is unique in that we follow a “team” of investigators as they do their sleuthing.  Francis is nominally in charge, but the other team-members—Thomas Clarady, Benjamin Whitt, and yes, Trumpet herself—all conduct their own investigations, and none of them, including Francis, fully disclose their discoveries to the others.

 

    The case quickly takes some weird turns.  No weapon is found; indeed, no wound is found on Viscount Surdeval’s corpse.  Hmm.  Maybe he died of natural causes.  But no, someone took the time to carve a cross into his chest.  Is it a sign that religion plays a part in this?  Unfortunately for our heroes, the knife used to carve the cross was not left behind.

 

    Things build to a very tense ending, that somehow didn’t feel over-the-top.  The perpetrator is cunningly trapped into revealing the who-how-and-why of the misdeed, and will face the appropriate judgment.  Needless to say, my guess as to the whodunit was turned out to be totally wrong.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 470 ratings and 51 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.23*/5, based on 356 ratings and 47 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Fustilarian (n.): a lowlife scoundrel.

Others: Tinto (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    “What do you think about me?  About this!”  She held out her hands to display herself.  “About what you see.”

    “Ah.”  Tom pretended to consider it.  “Well, I think you are the most perfect vision of maidenly beauty I have ever seen.  I think they should hold a competition among the greatest sculptors in Europe to craft your image in marble as a model for future generations of womankind to strive toward.”

    She blinked, and her mouth twisted in a complicated half frown.  “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

    “It almost was one.”  (pg. 18)

 

    “Then you’ve identified the murderer?” Lady Russell asked.  “Well done, Nephew!”

    Some of the women began to applaud, but Bacon held up both hands to stop them.  “No, my good ladies and gentlewomen, I must admit I have as yet no proof sufficient to bring the murderer to justice.”

    “But you know who it is,” Lady Russell said.

    Bacon pinched the pleats in his left wrist ruff while his gaze wandered over the tops of the women’s heads.  Trumpet recognized the evasive mannerisms.  He either didn’t know or he wasn’t going to tell them.  He would babble pompously for a few minutes and then run away.

    “Suspicions have evolved in such directions as to preclude any definitive verification of culpability.”  (pg. 251)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Widows Guild sells for $1.99 right now at Amazon.  The other books in the series range in price from *free* to $4.99, with the prices increasing as the series progresses.  I’ve also read the first book in Anna Castle’s *The Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery* series, and quite enjoyed it.  The four books in that series all cost $4.99.

 

News delivered by demons could never be good.  (pg. 271)

    There’s only a miniscule amount of profanity in The Widows Guild, I counted only a mere 9 cusswords in the whole tale, none of which were f-bombs.  When the situation called for swearing, two phrases, presumably authentic Medieval epithets, were used: “God’s teeth” and “God’s bollocks”.  I thought that worked incredibly well.

 

    I noted only two typos: wanted_put/wanted_to_put and any_more/anymore.  Kudos to whoever did the editing. I *thought* I’d caught an anachronism when “Occam’s Razor” came up in the text.  But checking in Wikipedia revealed that the eponymous source of this concept, William of Ockham, lived in the 1300s, so Francis Bacon and company may well have been familiar with it.

 

    There were a couple instances where it sounded like someone’s sexuality was being questioned; plus one character engaging in cross-dressing, and being very comfortable doing so.  Maybe I am over-thinking these parts.  Mayhap they’ll be addressed in subsequent books in this series.

 

    I found The Widows Guild to be an entertaining read, full of witty repartee and a stellar blend of well-researched Historical Fiction and well-developed Murder-Mystery.  I particularly liked the use of 16^th-century vocabulary, including the likes of jakes, galligaskins, partlet, doublet, wherry, and ballyrag.  It gave the setting a realistic “feel” like I was walking alongside Francis Bacon in 1588 London, and I’m looking forward to reading Book 4 in the series, Publish and Perish.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  Trumpet’s life is saved by her being absent from the marriage bed on her wedding night.  That’s good.  But if her marriage was never consummated, it means she is not heir to the Surdeval Estate.  Instead, Surdeval’s relatives would inherit it.  That’s not so good.  An embarrassing test of Trumpet’s maidenhead is the only way to settle this.  What should she do?