The Good Death
A Somershill Manor Mystery
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
In the new Somershill Manor mystery, Lord Oswald de Lacy makes a devastating confession to his dying mother. But will he gain the forgiveness he seeks, or destroy his family?
England, November 1370. Oswald de Lacy, Lord of Somershill Manor, makes a devastating confession to his dying mother. But will he gain the forgiveness he seeks—or destroy his family?
In 1349, Oswald, the third son of the de Lacy family, was an eighteen-year-old novice monk at Kintham Abbey. Sent to collect herbs from the forest, Oswald comes across a terrified village girl. Frenzied with fear, she runs headlong into a swollen river. Oswald pulls her broken and bruised body from the water and returns her to the local village, only to discover that several other women have disappeared. A heinous killer is at work, but because all of the missing women come from impoverished families without influence, nobody seems to care.
Oswald vows to find this killer himself—but as plague approaches, his beloved tutor Brother Peter insists they must stay inside the monastery. He turns instead to the women of the village for help, and particularly the enigmatic and beautiful Maud Woodstock—a woman who provokes strong emotions in Oswald.
As he closes in on the killer, Oswald makes a discovery that is so utterly shocking that it threatens to destroy him and his family. Even as plague rages across England and death is at every door, Oswald must kill or be killed. And the discovery will be a secret that haunts him for the rest of his life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Sykes's superior fifth mystery featuring Oswald de Lacy (after 2019's The Bone Fire), the action alternates between 1349, when the 18-year-old de Lacy was a novice at Kintham Abbey, and 1370, when de Lacy, now Lord Somershill, shares secrets from the past with his dying mother to get her forgiveness. At Kintham Abbey, while on an errand to collect herbs, he spots teenager Agnes Wheeler, who helps with the monastery's laundry, hiding in a bush. Agnes is terrified, and flees into a river, warning "Keep away from me, priest!" before the current sweeps her away, drowning her. When de Lacy retrieves the body, he finds marks of violence on it, including rope abrasions. Blaming himself for scaring Agnes into her fatal flight, he resolves to identify her assailant, who may have also been responsible for the disappearances of several other girls. That task becomes more complex after he learns the truth about Agnes's parentage. The framing device increases suspense, and the author's inventiveness and gift for description serves to deepen an already nuanced lead. Sykes solidifies her standing as a preeminent historical whodunit writer.
