Tamara Siler Jones Threads of Malice

Threads of Malice

Tamara Siler Jones

Bantam, Nov 2005, $6.99, 528 pp.

ISBN: 0553587102

Since the murder of his wife years ago, Castle Faldorran Castellan, Dubric Byerly sees ghosts of homicide victims demanding justice. These otherworldly essences will not leave him any respite, haunting him and leaving Dubric exhausted to the point of collapse, until he resolves their respective case.

The youthful geese tender, Eachann, arrives from the northern reaches fatigued, injured, and distraught, claiming the dark is killing young boys with the latest victim Braoin, a cousin of the wife of Dubric's squire Dien. Dubric, Dien and two pages, Lars and Otlee, head to the Reach to investigate a string of homicides by an apparent serial killer. To his chagrin, upon reaching the crime scene vicinity, ghosts of the victims assault Dubric demanding justice. However, he and his staff begin to believe that the adversary is invincible as well as malevolent.

The second Dubric ghostly tale is a much more vividly darker novel than the more capricious sprightly GHOSTS IN THE SNOW. The efforts to use forensics during the medieval era, and thereby before the science of criminology, has been created. Add to a fine blending of mystery, horror, and even a touch of the fantasy. Interestingly the investigation is filled with twists and turns, red herrings, and dead ends (literally and figuratively,) that make for a fine who-done-it. Still this is Dubric's tale as he battles ghostly migraines, evil spirits, rotting corpses, bumbling assistants, and a touch of love to battle an unbeatable foe.

Harriet Klausner