Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston find that murder does not reckon time or wait for this or that.
Brother Athelstan, Dominican friar and parish priest and Sir John Cranston, Lord High Coroner of London are called to the house of a skilled chief cipher clerk of the secret Chancery, Simon Mephan, where they find 3 corpses, two strangled and one dead of a heart attack. Simon managed to get to his desk and underline in the Book of Luke’s Gospel the following “Our name is legion for we are many” before his heart gave in. The two victims that were strangled did not struggle or kick out; did not upset any furniture; did not try to escape; did not scream or shout. Nothing was stolen and their evening meal still remained on a tray covered by a fine linen cloth. A mystery indeed!
Brother Athelstan is threatened and as more deaths follow, Brother Athelstan and Sir John have their hands full in resolving murderous mayhem in the aftermath of the Great Revolt in London while preparing for a pilgrimage to Canterbury to visit the sacred bones of Thomas Becket. However, murder, in all its forms, makes its presence felt, even on holy pilgrimage to Canterbury.
The book is well written and manages to weave the plot into a historical setting; one that I had not known much about previously. Brother Athelstan is like a fourteenth century Sherlock Holmes, solving the mysterious deaths with deductive reasoning and intuitive thinking, showing how people are not always as they seem on the exterior; a pleasant exterior often hides a very rotten and evil core.
Well worth the read.
Saphira
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Paul Doherty continues his Brother Athelstan medieval mysteries with A Pilgrimage to Murder. Brother Athelstan and Sir John Cranston, Lord High Coroner of London, must find who garrotted supporters and henchmen of John of Gaunt after the crushing of the Great Revolt against Richard II. To find the assassin, Brother Athelstan goes on pilgrimage but murder follows. A very dark tale of very dark time. Well plotted with interesting characters.

Totally fascinating!

1381, 'The Great Revolt' is over, the rebels crushed. The rebellion has been put down but the aftermath is a horrendous sea of treachery, uncertainty and fear. The Upright Men, the Reapers, the Earthworm Men dead and scattered.
'The scaffolds .... heavy with cadavers, the lumbering execution carts and corpse barrows a common sight. The quartered remains of traitors, all tarred and bloodied, decorated a forest of stakes on every available gateway, but the revolt was definitely over.'
Doherty is just so fantastic with his descriptions. I am constantly in awe of his use of language. The images he produces are vivid and colorful and stay with you.
Brother Athelstan, Dominican friar and parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark, is to lead his parish council on a pilgrimage to St Thomas a Becket’s shrine in Canterbury 'to give thanks for the wellbeing of [his] congregation after the Great Revolt.’ As the story continues a host of others, seemingly more political than not, join the party. Included are a Spanish friar ordered to do penance, members of John of Gaunt's Secret Chancery, a doctor and his family, and others collected as the time draws near.
Not quite Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but if you look closely just as complicated and becoming more so as a string of assassinations begin to dot the landscape. The garrotted corpses bear the message ‘Lord Azrael greets you’. A further puzzle for our dedicated friar to pursue. Indeed Athelstan himself finds his beloved one-eyed tomcat Bonaventure with the grisly 'corpse of a magpie, a garrotte string wrapped around its throat' accompanied by that message.
This particular murderer arouses Althestan's anger on more than one occasion.
The deciphering of the cause of these murders is as usual a wonderfully wrought masterpiece of deduction and sleuthing on the part of our beloved astute Dominican priest.
As Doughtery points out in a his Author's Note, 'Sir John Cranston and Brother Athelstan will have their hands full in resolving the murderous mayhem which became a hallmark of their time.' That mayhem is so obvious throughout Doherty's rich depiction of the times.
I look forward to more from the Friar and his companions.

A NetGalley ARC
(March 2017)

A Medieval Mystery/Thriller That Brings You Into the Story And Trying to Figure Out With Friar Athelstan Whose is the Killer
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A Pilgrimage to Murder is Paul Doherty‘s 17th novel in the A Brother Athelstan Medieval Mystery Series. It is the first novel of this series that I have read.
The novel opens with the protagonist, Friar Athelstan, at the scene of three murders. He was accompanied by his friend Sir John Cranston, the Lord High Coroner of London, Two were garroted. They did not seem to struggle during their garroting which hard to believe not to have occurred. The third victim was discovered upstairs where it appears that he was not murdered but died of a heart attack. Before he died, it appeared that he underscored two words in red in the Latin version of the gospels. Those words were “legio” and “multi.” Also, a note was found on the garrote string. It said, “Lord Azrael greets you.” The murder seems to be mocking them. From here there are more murders by garrote. Again, the victims appeared not to struggle. The story takes off from there. There are plenty of plot twists and turns that go right up to the end of the novel. Then, Friar Athelstan is taunted and appears to be in the killer’s sights.
The author also skillfully weaves in several subplots into the storyline to add more richness. There is an attack on the Regent, a rick merchant, Peter the Penniless, who has sought sanctuary in the Church even though he has not committed any crime, and a wayward friar ordered to do public penance.
As for the development of the B-story from the previous novels, I cannot comment as I stated above, this is the first novel in this series that I have read. I can say that I never felt that any part of this novel depended upon unexplained event in the previous novels. As for the B-story within this novel, it was rich, well woven into the main story and supported it. Interactions with others like Benedicta, and other characters in the novel.
Now, the novel started well but the author at times spent too much time in describing the scene. This occurred quite often through the novel. I found it a little distracting and slowed the pace of the story. Overall, this was a minor distraction. Another aspect of this work was both a plus and a minus. The author uses the period name for items and actions. The plus side is that brings into the time period of the novel. The negative sign is that if you are not familiar with that periods terminology, I would recommend reading as I did on a Kindle that I could find the definition of these words and in some instances searching the Internet for the few not in the dictionary.
Overall, the story captured by attention. I read late into the night when I should have been sleeping and enjoyed the reading. These are my major requirements for a high star rating. I give A Pilgrimage to Murder a five-star rating. If you have read the previous novels in the series, I am sure that you will not need any encouragement. If you have not, to me this is an excellent work with which to start, but remember that the reading may take a little effort. Your perseverance will be rewarded.
I have received a free kindle version of this novel through NetGalley from Severn House with a request for an honest, unbiased review. I wish to thank NetGalley and Severn House for the opportunity to read this novel.

"A Pilgrimage to Murder" is a historical mystery set in 1381 in England. It's the 16th book in a series. You don't need to read the previous novels to understand this one, and this novel didn't spoil the previous mysteries. Much time was spent describing setting and historical details. The pilgrimage didn't start until nearly 60% of the way into the story, and they only traveled one day before it came to a halt.

Since people were being mysteriously murdered throughout the story and Athelstan was a target, it could have been very suspenseful. But so much time was spent describing the setting that it slowed the pace and dulled that suspense. There were clues as to whodunit, but Athelstan kept some of the clues to himself until the big reveal. Still, I was able to guess whodunit (and was mostly correct). There was enough complexity to what was going on that there will be surprises as Athelstan describes who did what.

There were no graphic sex scenes or bad language. However, the many dead bodies were described in detail, from strangulation to decapitation to rotting heads on pikes. I enjoyed the historical detail and the characters, but I would have preferred less graphic detail about the corpses.