A Wicked Deed

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.

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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.

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.

forgettable

confusing and highy impossible not that good the author lost the plot somewhere in the middle

A Gripping Hear

Great story, which I would listen to on my way and home from work, sometimes making me late as I wanted to hear what was going to happen next and couldn't wait. The writer has a great way of imparting a lot of historical references - helping me learn something new about the era as I read.
The narrator had a good voice to listen to, changing his voice for different characters, although sometimes they did sound the same, but that didn't impair my listening.

Superb!

This is my first purchase by Susanna Gregory and I wasn't sure about buying it. I am so glad I did, it was brilliant, full of intrigue and lots of weird and wonderful medieval ideas. I really liked Matt Bartholomew, and also several of the other major characters, there were plenty of evil bodies to dislike too.
I will look for another novel by this author, this was very unputdownable!