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Rating: 
Summary: Readable but no Ellis Peters
Review: Ellis Peter's crown is still safe. Susanna Gregory can write a credable medieval mystery but she still has a long way to go before she can hope to challenge the undisputed mistress of medieval whodunnits. The book is quite readable, certainly better than the mediocre Dame Frevisse mysteries with their revisionist vision of a gender neutral Celtic Church (OK, maybe not as blatantly--Platonically?--misogynistic as the Catholic Church but no women's paradise either) but the book is about 50 pages too long to be truly engrossing. I found myself resisting the urge to skip ahead a few pages to see if anything had actually happened. Now, Ellis Peter's books are hardly action-packed but she could write and you wanted to read her character developments and descriptions! However, with Gregory, there is so much contemporary language creeping in and so many disconcerting historical errors, that you just want her to get on with the plot and stop trying to pretend she can write! For example, and this error is so egregious as to be almost unbelievable, abandoned churches are not battleships. They are not "decommissioned," they are "deconsecrated." Tsk, tsk, tsk. So, pick it up cheap but don't expect Ellis Peters.
Rating:
Summary: Readable but no Ellis Peters
Review: Ellis Peter's crown is still safe. Susanna Gregory can write a credable medieval mystery but she still has a long way to go before she can hope to challenge the undisputed mistress of medieval whodunnits. The book is quite readable, certainly better than the mediocre Dame Frevisse mysteries with their revisionist vision of a gender neutral Celtic Church (OK, maybe not as blatantly--Platonically?--misogynistic as the Catholic Church but no women's paradise either) but the book is about 50 pages too long to be truly engrossing. I found myself resisting the urge to skip ahead a few pages to see if anything had actually happened. Now, Ellis Peter's books are hardly action-packed but she could write and you wanted to read her character developments and descriptions! However, with Gregory, there is so much contemporary language creeping in and so many disconcerting historical errors, that you just want her to get on with the plot and stop trying to pretend she can write! For example, and this error is so egregious as to be almost unbelievable, abandoned churches are not battleships. They are not "decommissioned," they are "deconsecrated." Tsk, tsk, tsk. So, pick it up cheap but don't expect Ellis Peters.
Rating: 
Summary: Medieval WhoDunIt - Tradition of Ellis Peters
Review: I desperately wanted to find another author that wrote mysteries set in Medieval times like Ellis Peters, and was thrilled when I found Matthew Bartholomew. This a great series. Ms. Gregory bases her setting on actual places and things that occured in Cambridge at the time of the Black Death. This book talks about guilds and covens during this era when people were trying to find answers for why the Black Death occurred. It's a good mystery with excellent characters and a great story line.
Rating:
Summary: Gregory's mysteries keep getting better.
Review: I picked up the first Susanna Gregory novel (A Plague on Both Your Houses) in England for my mother, a lover of mysteries, and had no intention of reading it myself as I am inclined to find such books trite and boring. However, circumstances led me to pick up the book one day, and I could not put it down. The mixture of medieval culture, medicine, humor, and mystery made for a delicious brew. I finished the novel the same day and read the second novel in the series, An Unholy Alliance, the next day. This second book is by far better than the first, mainly because Gregory doesn't have to spend as much time developing the characters. The scandals in this mystery -- seemingly Satanic rituals and witchcraft, to name a couple -- certainly transcend medieval Cambridge and reflect our own times. As usual, Gregory kept me guessing throughout the novel in a series of exciting twists, and by the time I was finished I was ready for more. This series is engaging, suspenseful, and delightful even for those of us who normally do not enjoy mysteries. Give this book a try (but read A Plague.. first!).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent part of an excellent series
Review: I've read all three of Gregory's Dr. Bartholomew mysteries available in the US. "Unholy Alliance," like the other two is fascinating and entertaining. Matthew Bartholomew is an engaging hero. Be aware however that the books have been published out of order in the US. The correct order is "A Plague on Both Your Houses," "Unholy Alliance," and "A Bone of Contention."
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent series
Review: This is an excellent series which really brings the medieval world of Cambridge to life. I've read all the books that have been published in the states and I recommend them highly to anyone who enjoys their history spiced with a bit of mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Typical of the series
Review: Two years or so after the events of "A Plague on Both Your Houses", Matthew Bartholomew is displeased to find himself once more investigating murders and mysterious goings on in Cambridge, 1350. This time, his investigations are not a matter of choice; he and his colleague from Michaelhouse, the Benedictine monk Brother Michael, have been ordered by the University Chancellor to get to the bottom of things.
There's a lot to like about Susanna Gregory's series about Bartholomew. She brings medieval Cambridge to life in all its turbulence and dirt, and incorporates all sorts of period detail so that it seems entirely natural, not like you're being given a lecture on how people lived then. She has created many likeable characters, without ever making them seem unrealistically modern in their sensibilities. Bartholomew, the physician and university lecturer and hero of the tales, is the best of these: thoughtful, dedicated, and kind, but also naive, temperamental, and rash. Other recurring characters, even those with bit parts, are similarly engaging. She really uses the University of Cambridge, having her characters investigate according to the rules of logic they have been taught, and making the colleges, students, and masters a strong part of her tales. Gregory also has some real skill at comic writing, which makes for the occasional hilarious interlude.
I read Gregory's books non-stop, they are that compelling, but I am not always satisfied when I finish them. I am not convinced the reader is given enough clues to figure things out. On the other hand, I practically never manage to work out any mystery novels I read, so maybe other readers don't have this complaint. The plots are very convoluted, so it can be hard to keep track of everything that's going on, and sometimes the denouement doesn't seem worth everything that's gone before. But again, that's perhaps just a personal judgement, rather than an actual flaw. The writing could sometimes be a bit more polished, and all the rhetorical questions do get on my nerves after a while.
"An Unholy Alliance" is amongst the best of Gregory's books. It is slightly different in tone to "A Plague on Both Your Houses", but that's not a criticism. It has two intertwined mysteries that it is becoming more and more urgent to have solved: an attempted theft from the University Chest which leads to a mysterious death, and the murders of the town's prostitutes. Bartholomew and Michael get to the bottom of the first mystery in a way they never expected. But will anyone believe Bartholomew when he proposes a solution to the second? The denoument is exciting, and the motives of the criminals and the way everything comes together at the end is believable and satisfying.
One reason I like Matthew Bartholomew as a character so much is because he's not a superman. He often puts the pieces together, but he rarely, if ever, does it all on his own. Nor does he always get it right, or know what to do in every situation, or prove himself able to handle anything and everything. These books are a team effort amongst the characters, and that is one of their strengths.
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