2013; 321 pages. Book 3 (out of 30) in the “Chronicles of Brother Hermitage” series. New Author? : No. Genre : Cozy Murder-Mystery; Humorous Crime;
British Humor. Overall Rating : 6½*/10.
Briston the Weaver has been
murdered! Executed, to be exact, and it
was carried out by a group called the “the Guild of Weavers”. The King’s Investigator, Brother Hermitage,
knows all this thanks to one of his cohorts, Wat, who is also a weaver.
There’s something about the strange way in which Briston’s
corpse has been found: a “body suit” of sorts has been woven around him, very
intricately and expertly done. There’s a
tuft of Briston’s hair sticking out the top of the weaving, and his two feet
sticking out the bottom. The rest of him
is swathed in yarn.
According to Wat, the Guild of
Weavers even has a name for this type of shroud.
It’s called the Tapestry of
Death.
What’s To Like...
The Tapestry of
Death (Book 3) is the second book I’ve read from this series; the first
one, Hermitage, Wat and Some Nuns (Book 6), is
reviewed here. Both are set just a
couple years after the Norman William The Conqueror invaded England, and
clobbered the Saxon Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 CE.
The art of tapestry-weaving is
spotlighted in this story. Wat and Briston knew
each other well, and both were members of the guild of weavers. The reader is introduced to Cwen, a young, female apprentice weaver under Briston and who becomes
a part of Brother Hermitage’s team from here on. This is a good career move for Cwen, since
teaching the secrets of the weaving trade to a girl is a capital crime.
The action starts
immediately. The book opens with
Hermitage and Wat examining the “cocooned” body in Briston’s tent. Unsurprisingly, their investigation rapidly
becomes more complicated. Who is the
Hoofhorn? What did Briston do to bring
the wrath of the guild down upon him?
What kind of monster or monsters lurk outside Stott’s manor? And if he's not too busy, can Hermitage also find
a Norman commander’s daughter and solve another murder?
I liked the “feel” of the
Historical Fiction aspect of The Tapestry of Death. The scenes of 11th-century England
seemed real to me, not overdone and not like they’d been lifted from a
Wikipedia article. That’s important whenever I’m reading a novel set in the past.
The book is written in
English, not American, but it wasn’t distracting, and I enjoyed the alternate
spellings of words like judgement, offence,
realise, favour, sceptical, fraternize, et al. There’s even a smidgen of Latin in the text,
the easy-to-decipher: “Deus salvabit nos.”
The ending is so-so. The “whodunit” aspect of the main murder gets
resolved not by Hermitage’s sleuthing but by the killer simply revealing that
he did it. The “Hoofhorn” sidelight has
a rather forced denouement. Yet all the plotlines are
wrapped up by the book’s end, and that's the important thing.
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.4/5
based on 741 ratings and 100 reviews.
Goodreads: 4.25/5 based on 340
ratings and 22 reviews.
Excerpts...
“He always was a chancer.”
“A chancer?” Hermitage hadn’t heard the word before.”
“One who took chances, risks. Always on the look out for the big
fortune. Perhaps taking some money for
something he hadn’t done. Passing off
work as your own when it might not be.
That sort of thing.”
“Ah.
Dishonesty. But not you.” Hermitage stated a fact.
“Cautious and steady, me. Always have a fall back.” Wat was reassuring, but he hadn’t actually
denied dishonesty. (loc. 144)
“The ritual doesn’t allow the tapestry to
be opened again.
If opened be
The tapestry
Of death once it is woven.
Great evil will
The world up fill
Unless it is recoven.”
“Recoven?”
Hermitage was aghast at this nonsense.
And the appalling use of the language.
“Don’t know,” Wat shrugged, “I think it’s a
sort of mix of recovered and re-woven.
Most of the guild ritual is in awful rhyme.” (loc. 2356)
Kindle Details…
The
Tapestry of Death presently sells for $3.99 at Amazon. The other 29 books in the series range in
price from $2.99 to $4.99, with the most recent books
generally a bit more expensive.
“The missing
tapestry could be the chop that choked the dog.” (…) “Eh?” (loc. 678)
The
Tapestry of Death is almost cussword-free. I counted just four of them in the first 25%
of the book, and those were of the milder, eschatological sort. I am always impressed when authors use their good
writing skills to heighten the tone of the text, rather than resorting to the overuse of cussing.
There are a few passing
references to events in the first two books in the series, neither of which
I’ve read, but I didn’t find that to be a hindrance. None of them were critical to the
storyline here, and I could more or less figure them all out, except for whatever happened at Leamington.
The main issue with The
Tapestry of Death lies with its horrendous misuse of commas. Particularly vexing was the complete absence
of commas in direct dialogue. One
example: “I know Hermitage” instead
of the different, and intended connotation: “I
know, Hermitage”. There were
lots of other comma errors as well, but this was the most persistent one. To be fair, this appears to have been corrected by
Book 6, so I’m thinking I may not be the first reviewer to have pointed this out.
If you can ignore the
preponderance of punctuation gaffes, you will find a fast-paced and interesting storyline in The
Tapestry of Death. Wit and humor
abound, and there are enough plot twists sprinkled along the way to keep you
turning the pages. Howard of Warwick
has been churning these Brother Hermitage books out for ten years now, at an
average rate of three-per-year, and I’m curious to see whether his storytelling
and writing skills get refined over that timespan.
6½ Stars. One last plug for this book. We won’t go into details but “tapestry porn” is a major feature in the story. That may sound racy, yet I’d label The Tapestry of Death a cozy murder-mystery. How Howard of Warwick has managed to smoothly combine porn and cozy astounds me.
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