- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Robert Hale Ltd (April 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0709077998
- ISBN-13: 978-0709077992
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 754,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Servant's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"'History fans will relish every minute.' Publisher's Weekly 'Exquisitely woven.' The Cleveland Plain Dealer 'Executes her exercise...with audacity and ingenuity.' Kirkus Review"
Product Description
It's Christmas time, and the sisters of St. Frideswide cannot turn away travellers - even the theatre players knocking at the nunnery door. But along with the motley troupe comes the grievously wounded husband of the cloister's scullery maid, Meg. The actors swear they found the drunken wastrel in a ditch, but their tale sounds remarkably like another song and dance. Especially when two dead bodies are found waiting in the wings...Now, Sister Frevisse must find out if one of the actors is a murderer in masquerade or face a deadly Yuletide season..
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Margaret Frazer has done her research well as she guides us through the medieval landscape of traveling Players, the ordeal of patronage and prejudice, murder and mayhem in village and cloister. The reader is there in 15th century England, cold, fearful, hungry, but soon warmed,and well fed through the kindness and Benedictine ethics of the Sisters. The 20th century does not intrude here except in the discovery that people are universally the same: good, silly, corrupt, flawed no matter what time frame in which they might have lived. Murder is murder, but here, with a lively twist. The incisive, wise Sister Frevisse carefully asserts her strength, protecting the players. Why? She collects the facts overcoming all impediments and finally, is amazed, herself, when the truth of the murders is revealed. Terrific read, excellent research into the period and in the realistic portrait she paints of wandering theatre troupes. A book with authentic historical information combined with a page turning mystery.Read it and you will be eager to consume the rest of her work too!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is the first book by Margaret Frazer that I have read. I found she evoked the 15th Century effortlessly for me. I could feel the cold of winter and the constant coughing of the nuns irritated me as it does Dame Frevisse who is charged with finding out who is behind a series of senseless and calculated murders in and around the nunnery. Can she solve the mystery before the crowner Montfort blames the traveling troupe of players? Will an innocent pay?...
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Traveling Actors meet murder and prejudice in the cloister.
20 Jan 1999
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Margaret Frazer has done her research well as she guides us through the medieval landscape of traveling Players, the ordeal of patronage and prejudice, murder and mayhem in village and cloister. The reader is there in 15th century England, cold, fearful, hungry, but soon warmed,and well fed through the kindness and Benedictine ethics of the Sisters. The 20th century does not intrude here except in the discovery that people are universally the same: good, silly, corrupt, flawed no matter what time frame in which they might have lived. Murder is murder, but here, with a lively twist. The incisive, wise Sister Frevisse carefully asserts her strength, protecting the players. Why? She collects the facts overcoming all impediments and finally, is amazed, herself, when the truth of the murders is revealed. Terrific read, excellent research into the period and in the realistic portrait she paints of wandering theatre troupes. A book with authentic historical information combined with a page turning mystery.Read it and you will be eager to consume the rest of her work too!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
A bleak cold winter
12 Dec 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
We visit the fifteenth century priory of St. Fridewides in a bleak cold winter in Margaret Frazer's book the Servant's Tale. all the sisters have caught the rheum (or flu) and a group of players(actors)bring in a badly injured man. His wife, Meg is a servant to the priory and badly wants a better life for herself and her children. This seems unlikely to happen with a maimed husband who was somewhat shiftless in the first place and given to drink.
Before long we have a murder and the players are the chief suspects. Our medieval sleuth Sister Frevisse, wants to disprove this, because of her beginning friendship with this group of people.
I was not as fond of this book as I was with the others in the Sister Frevisse series. Frazer does her usual superb research and brings the fifteenth century to life. Her characters are interesting and you want to find out more about them. This novel is very bleak and sad. I knew who was the villain immediately and hoped I was somehow wrong.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Christmas at St. Frideswide.
17 July 2003
Format:Mass Market Paperback
It's a very cold Yuletide at St. Frideswide in the 1433. All the sisters are either sick or recovering from colds. Sister Frevisse is also not feeling herself, but she is thrown into another murder investigation when a village lad is found dead. Before they even get anywhere with that, another murder takes place. Who is killing people in what is supposed to be a religious and joyous season? Sister Frevisse must find out. Can she solve it before an even more grotesque murder happens? This is a good book. Ms. Frazer must use extensive research since her period detail and characterization is very good. Even so, it is a very dark and disturbing tale.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
