The Difficult Saint
A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In The Difficult Saint, Sharan Newman returns to medieval France and the murder-haunted Catherine LeVendeur, heroine of this acclaimed series.
After a harrowing stay with Catherine's in-laws in Scotland, Catherine and her husband, Edgar, have returned home with their two small children to live a life of peace at last--or so they hope. But soon the safety of those they love is questioned as anti-Jewish sentiment begins to grow in Paris. Raised Catholic by her father, Hubert, who poses as a Christian while practicing Judaism in secret, Catherine fears that the violence of the most recent crusade will repeat itself, victimizing members of her family. But before she can put too much thought into that, fate interrupts.
Catherine's estranged younger sister, Agnes, has returned to Paris with the news that she has been promised in marriage to a German lord. Bitter about their religious differences Agnes wants no part of Catherine or Hubert--except for the sizable dowry that Hubert can provide. When Catherine and Hubert arrange for Agnes to be escorted to Germany with her dowry, they assume that they have seen the last of her.
But then one of Agnes's escorts returns to Paris with terrible news: Agnes's new husband appears to have been murdered by poisoning, and Agnes is the prime suspect. In spite of their differences, Catherine believes in her innocence, and knows that she must do everything she can to save her sister's life. And when Catherine and her brood travel to Germany to begin sleuthing in a dangerously anti-Semetic climate, it becomes clear that Catherine and Edgar's long-dreamt of life of peace remains in the distant future--if they live to see it at all.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This sixth entry in the Catherine LeVendeur series of medieval mysteries (Cursed in the Blood, etc.) leans more heavily on history than mystery as Newman makes 12th-century Paris, a period of religious and political strife and much intolerance, a rich stage for her cast. Catherine, wife of one-handed Edgar, mother of two small children and daughter of a Jewish merchant, Hubert, is a Christian convert. When her estranged sister, Agnes, unable to accept her father's Jewish origins, contracts a marriage with a German wine grower, Lord Gerhardt of Trier, the family schism threatens to become both wider and more permanent. But Gerhardt's death, under circumstances that strongly implicate his new bride as either murderess or witch, sends Catherine and her family on an arduous trek to Germany to win Agnes's freedom by proving her innocence or another's guilt. The mystery develops slowly, which allows the reader to savor the customs, practices and beliefs that inform the lives of the French, German and English; of nobles, merchants and knights; of Jews, Christians and schismatics. If Newman doesn't deliver a particularly suspenseful plot, she compensates with her command of the period and her ability to translate her knowledge into an absorbing and entertaining narrative.
