Hangman Blind (Abbess Hildegard of Meaux Series #1)

by Cassandra Clark

Overview

In November 1382, the month of the dead, Abbess Hildegard rides out for York from the Abbey of Meaux. This is no ordinary journey—it is a time of rival popes, a boy king, and a shaky peace in the savage aftermath of Wat Tyler's murder—and Hildegard has embarked on a perilous mission to try to secure the future of her priory.

Traveling alone, she discovers danger, encountering first a gibbet with five bloodied corpses and then the body of a youth, brutally butchered. Who was the boy, how was he connected to the men hanging from the gibbet, and what do these gruesome deaths mean? Hildegard is determined to uncover the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. When even her childhood home, Castle Hutton, turns out not to be a safe haven from murder, Hildegard realizes she will have to summon all of her courage and wisdom to counter the dark forces that threaten her friends and family as well as her country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429964555
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/17/2009
Series:	Abbess Hildegard of Meaux Series , #1
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	731,961
File size:	599 KB

About the Author

CASSANDRA CLARK spent her childhood in Yorkshire, which served as an inspiration for Hangman Blind, her first novel. She lives in London.

Cassandra Clark lives in London. She is the author of the acclaimed series featuring Abbess Hildegard, including A Parliament of Spies, The Law of Angels, The Velvet Turnshoe, and Hangman Blind. Her childhood spent in Yorkshire was her inspiration for the series.

Editorial Reviews

Medievalists rejoice! British author Clark's debut, the first in a projected series, offers careful plotting, well-drawn characters and smart dialogue. In November 1382, Sister Hildegard, a Cistercian nun, is hoping to find in the East Riding of Yorkshire a place where she and several other sisters can establish an abbey to minister to the sick and the poor. Hildegard seeks help from the local magnate, Lord Roger de Hutton, in securing a suitable property, but after someone tries to poison Lord Roger, she winds up turning sleuth. Both members of his household and political rivals have motives for wishing Lord Roger dead. Hildegard's status as a nun allows her plenty of room to move through the different strata of society. Readers should be prepared for some slow pacing at the start, part of the scene setting that prepares for later plot developments. Clark may well do for Yorkshire in the age of Chaucer what Michael Jecks has done for Devonshire in his Knights Templar series set half a century earlier. (Feb.)

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Publishers Weekly

Hildegard, a wealthy widow who now is abbess of a small priory, embarks on a dangerous journey to her childhood home in Yorkshire. It is November 1382, and England is unsettled after the Peasant Revolt of 1381. Arriving at Castle Hutton, Hildegard finds all is not well. When her friend Roger de Hutton is poisoned, she agrees to help find the murderer. This mystery debut and series launch is replete with complex characters and plot lines woven into a tightly tangled web that Hildegard must untie to reveal the evil hidden within. Clark renders in astonishingly beautiful prose a magnificent historical portrait of England on the verge of the War of the Roses. Historical mystery fans, especially those who long for more books by Ellis Peters and Sharon Newman, will snap this up. Highly recommended for all collections. [Library marketing campaign.]

—Jo Ann Vicarel

Library Journal