The Traitor's Tale

As the Hundred Years' War against France approaches a resolution in 1450, Frazer's clever Benedictine nun, Dame Frevisse, emerges from her Oxfordshire abbey to solve a string of politically motivated murders in this illuminating but dialogue-heavy 16th installment (after 2006's The Sempster's Tale) in the author's medieval mystery series. Dame Frevisse joins forces with her old partner in sleuthing, Master Joliffe Norreys, when the duke of Suffolk, husband to her cousin Lady Alice, is killed. Several more men under Suffolk die or disappear, and Dame Frevisse links their fates to a sensitive missing letter from the duke of Suffolk to the duke of Somerset, that may hint the British lost Normandy by ""deliberate treachery."" As always, the pious Dame Frevisse wishes to be left in peace, but fraught circumstances compel her to do her best to help achieve justice. Although this slow-moving tale is not quite up to Frazer's usual standard, the author provides an interesting history lesson.