Maureen Ash The Alehouse Murders

The Alehouse Murders

Maureen Ash

Berkley, Sept 2007, $6.99, 288 pp.

ISBN 9780425217658

He felt the call to join the Templars and Bascat de Marins was overjoyed to be sent to the Holy Land to kill the Saracens and take Jerusalem for the Christians. His joy did not last long because he was captured by the enemy and became a slave and was tortured. He returned home after an eight-year-captivity minus an eye, a leg that limps and a loss of faith. He is sent by his order to Lincoln Castle to recover his health both physical and mental and hopefully return to the Templars with his faith restored.

He is given a private room in the castle where Nicolaa de la Haye is castellan and her husband Gerard Camville, King John's man is the sheriff. When two men and a woman are found dead in a local tavern, Nicolaa asks Bascot to investigate. At first glance it looks like the proprietor, a harlot and another young man were killed elsewhere and brought to the alehouse.. Bascot has information that leads him to realize that the woman was no harlot but the pregnant wife of the young man who was going to be named to a noble and that noble planned to put aside his spouse. The lord believes his wife and stepson killed Hugo and his pregnant wife to get rid of her and remain his heir but Bascat continues to investigate, wanting evidence not accusations.

Readers will receive a historically accurate depiction of life in medieval Lincoln during the beginning of the reign of King John. This work will be read by fans of Sharon Kay Penman, Sharyn Newman and Roberta Gellis. The protagonist obtains sympathy from the audience because of his physical and mental pain and his lack of direction. In some ways an innocent, he proves he is a hero when he refuses to let fall guys be tried for a crime he doesn't believe they committed. Maureen Ash's series will be very popular if the future novels are the quality of THE ALEHOUSE MURDERS.

Harriet Klausner