The Hangman's Hymn : The Carpenter's Tale of Mystery and Murder as he goes on a Pilgrimage from London to Canterbury

Rating:
Summary: superby entertaning, enjoyable and completely unputdownable
Review: Paul Doherty's Canterbury Tales of Mystery and Murder series is probably my favourite historical mystery series. I look forward to each and every installment and am usually very disappointed that, because he is a very prolific writer with so many different mystery series in the works, new installments in this particular series take a while to be published. For those readers who are not familiar with the series, I will attempt to paint in some background details about the series. The series is based on Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales;" the pilgrims are all bound for Canterbury and in order to make the journey more agreeable, everyone has agreed to take turns at telling two kinds of tales each day -- a merry tale or fable during the day, and an eerie tale of darkness at night. Doherty's series revolves around the mysterious tales of murder and evil that are told each night. Another gimmick involved that makes this series all the more interesting and intriguing is that the pilgrims are connected to each other in some way or the other. So far, there have been four books in the series. Each has been a truly absorbing and chilling read, and a real page turner. And "The Hangman's Hymn" (the fifth intallment) was no exception to this rule!

The pilgrims are now deep in the Kent country, when they stumble across the chief tipstaff to the lords of assize about to dispense justice by having a few felons hanged at the place of their crime. The law of the times demand that because the pilgrims have chanced across this, they stand witness to the deed. One of the pilgrims however, the cheerful dark haired carpenter is so affected by the sight, that he faints from the horror. That night, as the pilgrims take their rest at St. Bardolph's Priory, the others quiz the carpenter about his faint-heartedness; he in turn tells a hair raising tale of horror and pure evil -- about a poor carpenter, Simon Cotterill who comes to Glouchester for love's sake, who ends up joining the local hangman's crew, and who becomes involved in hunting down and killing a coven of murderous witches who are terrorizing the Glouchester country side. A tale of such darkness and evil, that the pilgrims are held completely spellbound, even as they wonder to themselves if the tale is a true one and if the carpenter is the unfortunate Simon Cotterill...

From the very first page, I was hooked. Yes, some of the plot twists were fairly obvious; but the charm of this series (and much of Doherty's writing style) is the manner in which he tells the tale. Paul Doherty has a fairly compelling and engaging prose style, one that keeps your interest and makes you read on in order to see how things pan out and what will happen next. I really love this series. Each and every installment has chilled; and I've looked forward to discovering which pilgrim is tied to the other and how. I have yet to be disappointed by this series, and cannot recommend it highly enough. (And if you have not had the good fortune to read any of the previous installments, the paperbacks can be easily purchased through amazon.co.uk. Unfortunately they are hard to come by in the US). My advice is to wait until it's dark, and then settle down to enjoy this creepy and superbly entertaining mystery novel, hopefullt without too many distractions!

Rating:
Summary: fine Chaucer tale
Review: The pilgrims continue their journey to Canterbury, but are stopped by Luke Tiverton and his men providing the king's justice by hanging violators of the "King's Peace". One of the pilgrims, the carpenter faints at the grim sight. Continuing on their pilgrimage, the travelers stop for the night at St. Bardolph's Priory.

While resting at the priory, the carpenter narrates his tale. Simon Cotterill a carpenter follows his beloved to Gloucester where needing work he joins a hangman's crew. In the nearby forest women are vanishing without a trace and a disfigured corpse has been found in the vicinity. Mayor Humphrey assumes that witches are toiling and boiling in the area and quickly has three crones arrested. Trying to keep the panic down and to insure the town continues to flourish, the mayor and his cronies arrange a kangaroo midnight trial to insure a guilty charge. Three days later they are hung in the forest, but the hangmen flee a nasty storm. When they return the witches are gone and their coven apparently seeks vengeance one mortal at a time. Simon hides while also serendipitously tries to solve who the real killer is.

The latest Chaucer tale, THE HANGMAN'S HYMN, is a terrific entry in what is one of the best continuing sagas on the market today. The tale is fun due to the exhilarating story within an exciting outer tale as the carpenter narrates a chilling ghostly amateur sleuth when the travelers stop for respite. The two sets of characters are fully developed so that the audience feels they rest at St. Bardolph's with the pilgrims and that the Carpenter's Tale happened.

Harriet Klausner