A Wicked Deed

The Fifth Matthew Bartholomew Chronicle

By: Susanna Gregory

Narrated by: David Thorpe

Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary

Matthew Bartholomew, doctor of medicine and fellow of Michaelhouse, Cambridge, is travelling with a party from the college to accept the gift of the living of a parish in Suffolk. One of his companions, Unwin, an unworldly scholar, is to be installed as priest. Their journey is not without incident - they are chased by footpads, pass through an eerie village abandoned after the recent plague and find a man barely alive on a gibbet - so they reach their destination with some relief.

But their thoughts of recovering while enjoying the local Pentecostal Fair are soon curtailed, as they are immediately thrust into the machinations of local boundary disputes between three landowners. Then all such squabbles seem mere trivial when Unwin is murdered in the very church which was to have been his home. While trying to investigate a possible motive for his killing, Bartholomew discovers that this is not the first unnatural death in the village - deaths which everyone has put down to the curse of the plague dead village. He is of too practical a mind to believe the superstitions, but is he wily enough to work out the real motive behind the murders and who will gain from them?

©1999 Susanna Gregory (P)2017 Little Brown Group

A Comfy Mystery

I like this series, it’s a bit like Agatha Christie. Entertaining but not dark. I enjoy the historical setting and the reader is excellent. I intend to listen to all the books in the series.

A Wicked Deed

Another fine adventure with Matthew and Micheal!! Seriously, a well laid out story and the voice of Danial Thorpe brings the characterS all together. Thank you

a thrilling and complex read

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed many of the Bartholomew books, and to date I think that this is one of the best. A story of murder, alchemy, superstition, folk tales and an abandoned village. I listened as often as possible and was really sorry when it finished.
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Enjoyable enough to listen to over and over

Theres' our favourite narrater. All our favourite characters and some fabulously varied new characters.
Unbearable tension and gripping episodes.Humour. Laugh out loud moments of 14th century living. Attention grabbing criminal pathology. A trip out of cambridge into the countriside. Scheming , plot twists and an ending that is a masterful surprise.
This has all the elements of Susanna Gregory's best books

Fabulous

The Matthew Bartholomew chronicles just keep getting better and better as they go on. I love the stories, the setting, the flavour of the period and mixture of grim crime and humour and the regualr characters who keep popping up in our 14th Century cross between Morse and Misommer murders. Most of all I love the friendship bewteen Matthew and Brother Michael, two dencent men doing the best they can as they muddle through their sleuthing, with Michael's greedy yet brave and intelligent cleric and Matthew's endearingly naive big heart and quest for truth mingling seemlessly together in the twists and turns of a plot that keeps you guessing. All of this is bound together magnificently by David Thorpe's reading. He really brings it all to life with his wonderful selection of voices which give each character a real personality that, as the books go on, makes one feel they are people we really know and love and that we really are secret listeners in a wonderful world of mystery.

Plot: convoluted, turgid, and ridiculous. Narration: as great as ever

I’ve listened to the previous audiobooks in the series, and the narration is as lively and engaging as ever, and is the only reason I saw this through to the end. Matthew is supposed to be intelligent, but makes cringe-worthy decisions and blunders that are out of character with his previous record, and he seems to be losing brain cells with each passing book! The plot was boring and over-wrought, the use of ‘sepulchral’ and ‘silent as the grave’ is laughably frequent, and there were some parts of the story (the turgid debate section) which should have been edited better and which I listened to on x2 speed just to get through it. Performance was wonderful though, as always.

strange happenings.

I found this book had a fault and part repeated itself very strange?? .

The best so far in the series

Much enjoyed during the lock down and being close to home made it more relevant a wonderfully crafted story

A winner

Another fantastic audio book! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys history and murder mysteries

enjoyable series

i like this series but recommend they are read in order. Fans of Peter Ellis and Michael Jecks will probably enjoy them as well

All the usual monkish fun and games

Barholemew does it again. and this times there's zombies. well sort of. plenty of explosions

slendid listen

love this series and the historic note at the end. looking forward to hearing next-door.