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Review of A Killing Season by Priscilla Royal


I’ve always enjoyed medieval mysteries. When well written, they pull me into a world distant and exotic enough to be utterly entertaining. Escape and history all in one read. Perfect. A friend recommended I read Priscilla Royal, and now I think I owe her a good lunch in return. Royal is definitely a skilled writer of medieval mystery.

Her duo of “sleuths,” Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas, have come to their vows from utterly different motivations and backgrounds, but nonetheless have a fascinatingly close working relationship, even while secrets and awkward moments abound. Royal resists putting modern sensibilities into her characters. They often make decisions violently at odds with the contemporary view of things. Good for Royal to have the integrity to build such true-to-history people. It makes for much more engaging reading.

The setting of A Killing Season is a fearsome castle in the middle of winter—a castle that “looms like Satan’s shadow” on a wild coast connected to the mainland only by a narrow walkway over jagged rocks and crashing sea. Sir Herbert, its master, has recently returned from a crusade and has summoned his fellow crusader, Sir Hugh, Eleanor’s brother, to bring him both medical and religious assistance. Even as Hugh, Eleanor, Thomas, and the others with them approach the frozen castle, they witness a sign of the profound troubles haunting everyone inside: a young man launches out of one of the windows to his death below. That’s only one of the mysterious deaths that sprout like weeds in this killing season. Is some evil plot of men behind them or has the devil come to exact his due? And for what great sins?

The knights have lost the shine on their armor. Indeed Royal shows the psychological costs that the wars have exacted on these “holy” soldiers. We might label it post traumatic stress today, but no such consideration is granted these men. And then there are other problems of prejudice and rigid viewpoints—Royal avoids either romanticizing this world or modernizing it. As you try to guess who or what is behind the killings, you must step into the characters’ viewpoints, into a strange old world. Or is it so far from ours after all?

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