A Corpse at St. Andrew's Chapel

A Corpse at St. Andrew’s Chapel

By Mel Starr

Monarch Books

ISBN: 978-1-85424-954-8

3.75 stars

Master Hugh de Singleton is a surgeon and the bailiff at Bampton manor. He’s the Lord’s representative and not always a popular person around the manor. One night, the village beadle, the man in charge of curfew, goes out on his rounds but doesn’t return the next morning. Hugh and a few men from the village go out to search for him and find him dead under a bush looking as if he’d been attacked by a wild animal. Soon after, a second person turns up dead and Hugh finds himself on a search for two killers.

In addition to his duties at the castle, Hugh is trying to solve two murders, find a poacher, and reassure people that a wild and crazed wolf is not on the prowl. He spends his days creeping about like one of the killers hoping to find out who’s been poaching deer from the Lord’s forest and wondering if the two murdered men might have seen something they shouldn’t have.

A Corpse at St. Andrew’s Chapel is a medieval murder mystery. It’s the second book in the chronicles of Hugh de Singleton. It was a quick, fun read and while it was still a bit of historical fiction for me (which I’ve sort of been avoiding to staunch any burnout I think I might be suffering from) it wasn’t overflowing with history, it was just the setting and I enjoyed that about the book. There were a few odd parts which I could have done without (Hugh gets a bit too interested in a scullery maid for my taste — leering is never becoming) but overall it a was nice distraction from my regular reading pattern. It’s the second book in the series featuring Hugh de Singleton but it worked as a standalone book for me. You don’t need to know anything about the people and places and Starr provides enough background for you to understand without feeling left out. My guess is that might change as the series progresses. A third book in the series is planned — A Trail of Ink.

I received this book through the Early Reviewer program on LibraryThing.