Servant of Death

Bradecote and Catchpoll

By: Sarah Hawkswood

Narrated by: Matt Addis

The much-feared and hated Eudo - the Lord Bishop of Winchester's clerk - is bludgeoned to death in Pershore Abbey and laid before the altar in the attitude of a penitent. Everyone who had contact with him had reason to dislike him, but who had reason to kill him?

The Sheriff of Worcestershire's thief taker, wily Serjeant Catchpoll, and his new and unwanted superior, Undersheriff Hugh Bradecote, have to find the answer. And as the claustrophobic walls of the abbey close in on the suspects, the killer strikes again....

©2014 Sarah Hawkswood (P)2017 Isis Publishing Ltd

It’s okay

As other reviewers have implied, this story took a while to hook my interest. Lots of fractured set up, and I didn’t find the characters interesting enough at that point to peek my immediate attention, except maybe the large stranger who came into town. However, once the murder happens, things pick up nicely. Positive: the setting, time, and descriptions were atmospheric and well done. Negative: the two key investigators did not get along, as stated in the title details. That was fine, but often, steps of their discord were over-explained by the writer. When something was said or described or asked, we readers then got a summary of how that affected one or both of the investigator’s thoughts about the other. We already knew they didn’t get along, so it would have been more interesting to have those things shown rather than explained. Thankfully, that issue eased up a bit, and the pace picked up, making the rest of the novel more engaging. Now that I know the characters I may get the second one, as a reviewer on book two said it was better than book one.

Great reader and series

This is my third time to listen to this series. Love the characters and story lines.

Enjoyable

It was a good book, I have hopes book 2 will be great but this is a good start and enjoyable read!

Good

A little hard to get into but got better as figured out the characters Murder and multiple suspects bring this on a good journey

Medieval armchair mystery

Not a lot happens even though four people are killed. We don't see any of the murders and much of the book is taken up by interviews of a long list of suspects. each of the suspects is in turn determined to be the killer, only to have our two law enforcement officers spend more time discussing why their conclusions are wrong, and then move on to the next suspect. i almost stopped after the first chapter which felt like a stream of consciousness introduction to the cast of characters. the author moves from one to the next so rapidly, they began to run together.

The narrator improved as he went along. His individual voices were fine but his narration lacked was flat in the beginning.