My life in books

The sixth of Peter Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma mysteries, The Valley of Shadow, finds Fidelma on her way to the remote western mountains of Cruacha Dubha, the homeland of Laisre, chieftain of Gleann Geis. Laisre and his lands remain pagan, but he has recently sent to King Colgu of Muman, Flidelma’s brother, saying he is willing to enter negotiations to allow a priest to come to his chiefdom, to build a church and a school. Colgu has appointed Fidelma as his emissary, thinking her best suited to speak on behalf of both himself and the church, as a princess of Muman, a religieuse, and a dalaigh. Brother Eadulf accompanies her.

But as they approach the mountains, Fidelma and Eadulf are met with a horrific sight. Thirty-three young men, all monks or priests by their tonsures, ritually killed and left by the road into Gleann Geis. Is it a warning? A threat? Despite the danger, Fidelma is determined to carry out her mission, but now she has another task as well - to find out who is responsible for the murder of her brothers in Christ.

This time, Fidelma finds herself in the midst of not only a negotiation over a request that no one but the chieftain appears to want, but an investigation into a horrific mass murder, and a complex plot against her brother’s throne. A solid mystery, with many twists and turns, it’s also an interesting look at Irish temporal and religious political conflicts in the early years of Christianity in Ireland.

So, I’ve been doing a fair bit of comfort reading lately, in between the other things I want to read, like Hugo finalists and some social justice and #ownvoices reading. My current comfort go-to series is the Sister Fidelma books by Peyer Tremayne. The Sister Fidelma books are soothing things for me, for all their murder and even occasional danger for the main character. There’s something about this precise combination - the idea of a female cleric who solves crimes in a historical setting that, to be honest, I find particularly fascinating because of my own Celtic heritage - that appeals to me. So...

Shroud of the Archbishop, the second volume in the Sister Fidelma mystery series by Peter Tremayne, follows closely on the events of the first volume. After the death of Archbishop Deusdedit of Canterbury, mentioned in the first book, Absolution by Murder, his chosen successor, Wighard, has travelled to Rome to be confirmed in his position by the Pope. As his secretary, Brother Eadulf has naturally accompanied him. And fortuitously, Sister Fidelma has also been ordered to Rome, to present the new Rule of her abbey of Kildare to the Holy Father for approval.

When Wighard is murdered and an Irish monk working in the Vatican’s Foreign Secretariat is arrested as the most likely suspect, the political implications of the case demand an unusual degree of sensitivity. Thanks to their successful unraveling of the murders during the Synod of Whitby, Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf are called on to investigate the murder and determine the truth.

Their investigation tajes many twists and turns, as not one, but many crimes, past and present, are found to have come together in a vast sequence of murder, false identity, theft and vengeance. And again, what makes the tale particularly fascinating to me is the wealth of historical detail that includes everything from a discussion of the relics collected by Empress Helena to the fate of the great Library of Alexandria.

A sold mystery, with a wonderful historical setting and a formidable detective. I find myself very much enjoying Sister Fidelma as a character. Her profession, status, and cultural background give her an at times almost modern feeling, as a woman sure of her abilities and rights. And I’m liking the development of the relationship between Fidelma and Eadulf - which, in a time before celibacy became a requirement for members of religious orders, could develop in so many interesting directions.it’s nice to see a man appreciate a woman who is at least as intelligent and educated as he is.

Suffer the Children, the third of the Sister Fidelma novels, begins in a way that speaks to some of what I particularly enjoy in these novels, which is the (somewhat idealised) depiction of medieval Ireland as a place where women held status in society unparalleled in the rest Europe. It’s a world where a woman like Fidelma has no fear of riding alone from her home at the abbey of Kildare to Cashel, to answer a summons from her brother Colgu, the heir to the king of Muman, one of the five ancient kingdoms of Ireland. And a world where a woman can be a high-ranking official of the judiciary, or any other profession.

As one would expect, Colgu has a murder mystery for Fidelma to solve, one that threatens the peace between Muman and the neighbouring kingdom of Laigin. Dacan, a scholar of great renown and one with family ties to the king of Laigin, is dead, murdered at the abbey of Ros Ailithir. Brocc, the abbot of Ros Ailithir, and cousin to the king of Muman, is charged with responsibility for the crime. Because of the status of the deceased, the king of Laigin, as kin of the deceased, has demanded the return of Osraige, a disputed petty kingdom currently owing homage to the king of Muman, as an honor-price from the family of the person accused of responsibility for the death.

The king of Cashel is dying of plague, and Colgu, as tanaiste, or heir-elect, has commissioned Fidelma to investigate the murder and argue the case before the High Court at Tara in three weeks time. On her way to the abbey, located in the clan lands of the Corco Loígde, who are close kin to the king of Osraige, Fidelma is presented with another concern. She and her escort encounter a band of warriors, burning a village where, the leader claims, the plague has been active. But there are bodies in the village of people who have clearly died from violence, not plague, and Fidelma finds survivors, a young nun and a few children, who confirm the massacre of everyone else in the village. Worse, the leader of the band is the local chief and magistrate, who sits on the council of Salbach, the chieftain of the Corco Loígde.

Once more, Fidelma is faced with a crime - indeed, a series of crimes - that combines violence and politics. At the heart of the case is the search for the identity of the hidden heirs of the ancient princes of Osraige, who ruled before the clan of Corco Loígde. Everyone involved with the case has been looking for them, and the final pieces of the puzzle will not fall into place until Fidelma herself can find them.

The fourth Sister Fidelma novel, The Subtle Serpent, opens with a double mystery. Fidelma is on her way to the religious community of The Salmon of the Three Wells, located within the kingdom of her brother King Colgu, to investigate the murder of an unknown woman - her body found naked, headless, in a well, clutching a simple cross. While en route, the ship she is travelling on encounters an abandoned Gaullish merchant ship. Her cargo holds are empty, there are signs of blood recently shed, and perhaps worst of all, in one of the cabins Fidelma finds a book she had given as a gift to her dear companion of earlier adventures, Brother Eadulf.

As Fidelma seeks to solve both mysteries, she becomes aware that there is something very strange going on in the abbey and the surrounding community. There is open conflict between the abbess, Draigen, and the local chief, Adnar. Draigen herself is both arrogant and ambitious, and seems at times to be trying to impede Fidelma’s investigation. The abbey itself seems subtly wrong to Fidelma - there are few older members, and one of them, Bronach, is treated with much disrespect, as is Bronach’s protegee, Berrach, a severely disabled sister. Two sisters are missing - overdue to return from an errand - and though the younger one’s physical description matches the body, the abbess insists it cannot be her. And there is something strange about the abbey itself - sometimes strange noises seem to issue from the earth below the abbey, which Draigen says are the result of tidal water filling caves that riddle the area.

Meanwhile, Ross has been investigating the abandoned ship, and has discovered that it was brought to shore nearby, by a party of Irish warriors of the clan Ui Fidgenti, who pit the crew to work in the local copper mines. The ship itself vanished overnight while the Ui Fidgenti celebrated.

Fidelma finds things to concern her at Asnar’s stronghold as well. Draigen’s former husband, Ferbal, a bitter misogynist, lives in the compound. Adnar has guests - Torcan, prince of Ui Fidgenti and his companions, and Olcan, son of the local overlord, both families with ambition and grudes against her brother. And everywhere, in the abbey, on the abandoned vessel, even on the books in the abbey, Fidelma finds traces of an unusual red clay, commonly found in copper mines.

Another satisfying mystery from Peter Tremayne, complex and rich in atmosphere, drawing on both Irish history and legend, and the history of the Irish and Roman churches and the conflicts between them. Fidelma must uncover the secrets of the community, and of politics and greed, to solve the mysteries, and then, perhaps most satisfying of all, she sets forth fir new adventures with Eadulf at her side.

Peter Termayne is, as I understand, best known for his series of historical mysteries featuring Irish nun Sister Fidelma, which I have recently begun reading. However, he has written mysteries set in other eras, including the more-or-less modern one, and some of his shorter offerings are collected in Ensuing Evil and Others: Fourteen Historical Mysteries.

It's quite an interesting range, from a murder mystery set in the castle of the historical MacBeth and his lady Gruoch, to a modern locked-room mystery set in an airplane in flight. In between we visit the theatre district of Shakespeare's England, the well-known occupants of 221B Baker Street, a battleship during the Napoleonic Wars, the London of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and India under the British Raj, plus a bonus Sister Fidelma story. An enjoyable read.

Ever since I finished reading all the Dame Frevisse mysteries by Margaret Frazer (and the Player Joliffe mysteries too), and having read most of Ellis Peters' Cadfael mysteries, I've been a at bit of a loss for historical mysteries with clerical detectives. That gap in my reading life has for the time being been filled with a new series.

I have just encountered (for the first time) the Sister Fidelma mysteries by Peter Tremayne (one of Celtic scholar Peter Berresford Ellis' pseudonyms). Hemlock at Vespers: Fifteen Sister Fidelma Mysteries is a good introduction to the series, consisting as it does of short stories set throughout the earlier years of the seventh century Irish religieuse's crime-solving career.

What makes these stories so much fun is the background - the Irish church is still in full flower and outside cultural influences have not yet swept away a society in which women had a legal, social and economic status that would not be seen again in Western civilisation until the early 20th century.

Sister Fidelma is a dalaigh (her culture's version of a lawyer) one who is authorised to conduct investigations as well as argue legal cases before a Brehon judge. She holds one of the highest rankings possible in the Irish legal system, that of anruth, which gives her a social status equivalent to that of a minor king. While she is clearly Christian - although firmly on the Irish side of the religious divide, including preferring Pelagian to Augustinian philosophy - it is also suggested on several occasions that this is more a matter of following social expectations than a religious vocation. As Tremayne writes, before the arrival of Christianity, members of the professions - doctors, lawyers, educators and so on - were usually Druids. Once the Church supplanted the Druidic orders, those in the professions tended to join the Church instead. This was, of course, much more palatable in this eta, when celibacy was optional and the Irish Church operated religious houses where married clerics could live together and raise their children.

The stories themselves are interesting glimpses into another time and culture, as well as being decent mysteries. Tremayne's skill as a writer develops as one reads through in chronological order, although his phrasing remains vaguely stilted throughout, perhaps as an intentional choice to convey the nuances of what was a highly status-conscious society. He also has a few "tics" that show up mostly in describing Sister Fidelma, notably the ubiquitous references to her "rebellious" red hair.

But Fidelma herself is sufficiently fascinating a character, and the setting of the stories is so interesting, that I did not have much difficulty in ignoring the tics and just enjoying the stories.