It is spring in 1380 and Geoffrey Chaucer, poet and Comptroller of the King’s Woollens is keen to leave his apartment in London and go on his annual pilgrimage to Canterbury. But instead he ends up helping his old friend Sir Richard Glanville find out who murdered his former guardian the Duke of Clarence in his old childhood home Castle Clare.

I’ve read quite a few of this author’s books and have enjoyed them all, this one included. You can expect plenty of humor as well as a good underpinning of research as Chaucer revisits the home where he grew up and has to sift through a large number of secrets and suspects. He meets an old flame, play a strange board game, take part in a pageant dressed as a shepherd and nearly gets eaten by a lion among other things – you can tell that there is a lot going on in here. Chaucer and the other characters are all well drawn, well rounded creations you care about and the background of the castle comes to life as well. If you have read the Canterbury Tales you will chuckle as I did at plenty of oblique references to them but if you haven’t it doesn’t matter, as this can be enjoyed for what it is above all – a rollicking historical mystery that I hope is the first in a series.

Trow has written several historical mystery series, including one featuring the playwright Christopher Marlowe, so turning his attention to another English literary luminary, Geoffrey Chaucer, is a natural next step. Like other historicals that star Chaucer (Bruce Holsinger’s A Burnable Book, Michael B. Herzog’s This Passing World), this well-paced initial volume reads a bit like Canterbury Tales fan fiction, and the narrative style is cozy Edwardian armchair-detective rather than attempting to be actually medieval. However, Trow is an experienced craftsman, and his careful research creates a plausible historical analogue for the knight and squire who are the first-named fictional pilgrims in Chaucer’s famous anthology.

This novel begins, as do the Tales, on a cheerful April day, but the circumstances are more somber—Lionel, Duke of Clarence has just died under mysterious circumstances, and his trusted retainer, the titular Knight, Sir Richard Glanville, seeks Chaucer’s help in investigating the death, which shifts the setting to bucolic Clare Castle in Suffolk. Trow’s Chaucer is not a natural sleuth, but his open-mindedness and curiosity give him access to a wide variety of suspects; his innate empathy will inspire affection in all but the most pedantic of readers.

The omniscient point of view means that readers must shift their attention among many characters, which can be confusing, but Trow’s humorous tone and homely details of medieval life keep the reader entertained. His depiction of medieval biblical plays and folk festivals is particularly lively, all of which excuse the modern diction of his characters. Female characters, though important to the plot, are depicted in a tiresomely paternalistic way, and there are rather too many (historically accurate but insensitive) jokes about sexually predatory clergy, but one can chalk that up to the overall irreverent tone. It will be entertaining to see what kind of historical situations he comes up with for each of the Canterbury pilgrims.

Imagine Poet Geoffrey Chaucer as a solver of mysteries in this start to a new series. Hitting 40 Chaucer is going on a pilgrimage to get out of London. He spies a old friend from childhood and starts on a road to investigating the sudden death of his mentor The Duke of Clarence. This story gives you a real in-depth feel to medieval England. There are plenty of well thought out characters who catch your interest immediately. This is a great start to a series that you will follow with great expectations.
I was given an arc of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Traveling back to the fourteenth century for a murder mystery that is investigated by the famous author of The Canterbury Tales himself had all sorts of appeal. I happily picked up this book by a new to me author and settled in to be lost in a medieval mystery full of political intrigue and personal connection for Geoffrey Chaucer.

Chaucer is middle-aged and living in London. He’s preparing to set out on one of his usual pilgrimages when the son of an old friend arrives saying he is needed at Castle Clare. Like most boys of good family, Chaucer was fostered in another home and the man who fostered him was none other than the previous king’s son, the Duke of Clarence, and he was fostered alongside Sir Richard Granville who has sent for him. Richard isn’t satisfied that the duke died naturally even if he died alone in his bed in a locked room.

The Knight’s Tale introduced a whimsical and irreverent side to the poet and I enjoyed this version of Geoffrey Chaucer. I could tell right away that the author would balance his book somewhat away from the historical side and towards his fictional tale. His writing style distracted me and some aspects of the story were far-fetched, but I was much taken with the characters and especially the humor as Chaucer got to know the duke’s current household as he investigated the death and spent time reminiscing of his time there in his youth.

The mystery was a clever one with the locked room aspect, the ‘is it or isn’t it a murder’ part at first, and the varying motives that were present a plenty. The duke had made his enemies both personal and political so there was no absence of people to watch and question and ponder.

All in all, it had a lighter feel than some other historical mysteries I’ve read in the period and promises to carry on into a series. I never did settle well into the author’s writing style which felt too modern at times to me, but that happens now and then for readers and writers so I don’t hold that as a negative. Even so, I did enjoy the humor and his characters, the medieval world, and the mystery, somewhat, so I can definitely recommend it to others.

The excellent start for a new historical mystery series, it features Geoffrey Chaucer as detective.
i thoroughly enjoyed it, it's an engrossing and entertaining story.
Vivid and well researched historical background, solid mystery full of twists and turns.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Severn House for this Advanced Reader Copy and the opportunity to review “The Knight’s Tale.” All opinions are my own.

Lionel, Duke of Clarence is dead – in a locked room – and Geoffrey Chaucer, aided by his friends Richard and Hugh Glanville are soon convinced it wasn’t a natural death. Enough to forego his paid-for pilgrimage to Canterbury to investigate. This task forms the basis of “The Knight’s Tale” by M.J. Trow, the first in the series featuring Chaucer, who in real life had been a member of the duke’s court and was a civil servant for the King at the time our story takes place, in 1380.

It’s determined that the duke was poisoned – and, we’re off. There are plenty of suspects. The mistress, of course, whom no one likes. There’s a priest that Chaucer is suspicious about, but he’s out of the picture pretty quickly. There’s even a possibility that a woman from Chaucer’s past is involved. Then there’s the duke’s Italian countess and her family; a blood-feud, perhaps? Trying to solve a murder he may be, but a man has to eat; Chaucer gets to taste pasta for the first time, and the author lets him describe it for us. A treat.

We get a day of “Clare Pageants,” passion plays (whose titles are hilarious), to cap the investigation. Chaucer figures everything out, of course, at some cost to himself. But all’s well that ends well, as that other fellow will tell us. “Beware the smiler with the knife,” as Chaucer himself recounts, in his own “Canterbury Tales.”

The tone of the dialog is very modern, as is the dialog itself in many places. The book thus tends to have a “less than medieval feel” throughout. Some readers will find this not to their liking, others may consider it an acceptable change of pace. But there are wordscapes here, and there is humor in the telling. Geoffrey Chaucer makes a satisfactory detective, in “The Knight’s Tale.”

The Knight’s Tale is the first tale of Geoffrey’s Chaucer’s masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, so it’s fitting that in this historical mystery, Chaucer himself is dragged away from his annual pilgrimage to Canterbury – his inspiration for the Tales – in order to involve himself in a Knight’s Tale of his very own, the first in a projected series that features Chaucer as the amateur “detective” investigating a mysterious death that might be murder.

As the story opens, Chaucer, just hitting 40 and feeling it hit back in more ways than one, finds himself headed to Castle Clare, where he was fostered, instead of on his annual pilgrimage as he had planned. His mentor, rescuer and earliest benefactor, Lionel of Antwerp, the Duke of Clarence, has died under mysterious circumstances. Chaucer’s old friend Sir Richard Glanville has come to fetch Chaucer from London in the hopes that the man will either allay his suspicions of murder or put some meat on their bones.

There are plenty of reasons to suspect foul play, and the late Duke had made more than enough enemies for anyone to wonder if he was sent to his reward a bit earlier than heaven or hell intended. As the oldest surviving son of the late King Edward III, there are also possible political connections and motives in every direction.

But the man died alone, in bed, in a locked room on an upper floor of the castle. No one could have snuck either in or out and left the key on the inside of the lock. It’s a puzzle that Glanville hopes Chaucer can solve – as he has solved other puzzling conundrums before, whether or not murder was involved.

In a world where 21st century forensics – or even the late 19th century forensic science of Sherlock Holmes – will not be invented for centuries, it’s up to Chaucer to use his brains and his gifts for drawing people out and observing their behavior afterwards to figure out first, if there was a crime and second, if so, who committed it.

All while being distracted by his memories of the place he once called home and the love he left behind there.

Escape Rating A-: After yesterday’s book, I found myself searching for something with a straightforward plot. Not that there aren’t plenty of twists and turns and red herrings in mystery, but the genre has features that a reader can always depend on. There’s a body, a detective (however amateur), and a perpetrator with means and motive to uncover. Mystery is, after all, the romance of justice served.

This story also takes place in a period that I’ve always loved, the Plantagenet era in England, so it had the feel of the familiar. Something that still held true even though the author played seriously fast and loose with time and place. But even when I became aware of the historical inconsistencies (that Lionel of Clarence died in Italy in 1368 not England in 1380), is just the tip of that iceberg), the setting and the characters still felt more than correct enough for the whole thing to carry me along as much as I’d hoped it would.

At the same time, it also reminded me very much of two historical mystery series that are set in the same time period and that include Geoffrey Chaucer not as the protagonist but as a secondary character. The Crispin Guest Medieval Noir series (start with Veil of Lies) by Jeri Westerson and the Owen Archer series (start with The Apothecary Rose) by Candace Robb also touch on the politics and court intrigues of the Plantagenet kings and their far flung families, friends, retainers and enemies. Meaning that if you like one of the three series you’ll probably like the others.

Like the other two series I mentioned, this first book in the Geoffrey Chaucer series does an excellent job of putting the reader into the period while managing successfully not to put the reader off by making the historic characters into grand historical personages, even though they were.

Because that’s a view we have looking back. In their own time and place, they were just people, and the story does a great job of humanizing them and making them feel, well, real. It’s not just Chaucer’s brain that’s on display here, but also his nostalgia for his youth and his mourning for its loss, as well as his occasional vain attempts to be the young man he once was. He’s human and funny and sad and sarcastic and occasionally even snarktastic by turns. It makes him a fascinating amateur detective.

One I hope to see more of in future books in this series. After all, The Knight’s Tale was the first of Chaucer’s 24 published Canterbury Tales, so I have high hopes for 23 more books in this series!

April 1380 Geoffrey Chaucer's former guardian, Lionel, The Duke of Clarence has been found dead in his locked bedroom at Clare Castle in Suffolk. Finder of the body, Sir Richard Glanville asks him to come and investigate. But will this be the only death and what could be the motives.
An entertaining well-written historical mystery with its cast of likeable and interesting characters, especially Richard Glanville and John Hawkwood. A good start to a new series.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Canongate Books, Severn House Publishing for an e-galley of this novel.

I keep trying to read historical mystery novels that feature real people from history, but most I'm not happy with. This book just wasn't for me. In this story Geoffrey Chaucer is asked to travel to Clare Castle to determine who has done murder without any clear reason why he would have been expected to correctly solve the murder. Maybe if he's pushed hard enough or made to feel beholding enough that will give him some kind of insights into how to solve a murder? I didn't find the characters interesting, charming, endearing, villainous or murderous; I spent a lot of my reading time going back over passages to see why I was confused. I also didn't find the time of 1380 very well represented except as it related to the historical figures who were included in the story; there wasn't much atmosphere for grounding the story outside of historical events.

This is the very promising and highly entertaining start of a new series from the ever reliable and prolific M J Trow, featuring Geoffrey Chaucer in a less familiar role as an investigator and solver of mysteries. The Duke of Clarence has been found dead in his bed at his Suffolk castle and Chaucer's old friend suspects foul play. But is it murder and who, male or female, is the culprit. The historical detail is, as always, accurate and pleasantly informative giving life and colour to the backdrop of mediaeval life being nasty, brutish and short. Great stuff.

Some people, when they need a little comforting, turn to chicken soup. I turn to historical mysteries—and M. J. Trow is an author I can count on who can provide the kind of interesting, non-traumatic, non-overly romantic, occasional-in-joke fiction that I need when I'm in a funk.

I've read most of her Kit Marlowe mysteries. Now she's launched a Chaucer series. This is good news for me. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales contains 24 tales. So, if Trow is starting with the Knight's tale, that means I have up to 23 more books to look forward to in order to pull myself out of future funks.

This new book offers such little gems as—

"[H]e was so young. He'd barely finished shitting yellow."

"'Shawms.' the elder Glanville muttered suddenly. 'God, I hate shawms.'" (Shawms are actually a favorite of mine, but I can appreciate the sentiment.)

And there are the literary references—

"Glanville rolled his eyes. 'You know these Italians, Geoff,' he said. Actually, Chaucer didn't. He kept away from the Italian merchants in the city and the only Italian book he'd every read was by Dante Alighieri and it had left him rather cold."

And, as one of Chaucer's friends, who owns rather a large cat, explains when turning down an opportunity to go on pilgrimage: "I am not my own man, you see—for I must consider my cat, Geoffrey." Is Geoffrey the cat? Chaucer? Either way, it amuses.

If you're looking for historical mysteries that provide enjoyable, quick reads, M. J. Trow is just the ticket.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

[This review will be posted on GoodReads, EdelweissPlus, and LibraryThing, in addition to NetGalley.]

Personally, I love the way Trow takes a real historical character then posits them knee deep into the role of detective (check out his Kit Marlowe series).

I have added the tag of "alternate history" as Trow does play merry havoc with the timeline slightly but if you are not familiar with the time period, then you would be none-the-wiser. However, Trow is one of those authors who can pull it off rather convincingly and weave a wonderful mystery at the same time.

Geoffrey Chaucer - poet, soldier, civil servant, diplomat, courtier - is called upon by old soldier chum Richard Glanville to investigate a death of the one time patron - Lionel, Duke of Clarence. Throw in some witty, satirical, irreverent and humourous dialogue; murders (of course); some larger than life historical characters; and the aging Chaucer, and you have the start of what promises to be the first of another great mystery series.

This is a fun read - which I undertook in one sitting - testament to Trow's storytelling abilities.

A magnificent wordsmith blessed with a marvellous imagination takes some liberties, tweaks some dates and comes up with a terrific medieval whodunit, a suspenseful & humorous locked-room mystery full of poisonous intents, spicy Italian food & a terrific cast of historical characters and colorful fictional misfits.
The second son of Edward III , Lionel of Antwerp (also known as the duke of Clarence) died in 1368 in Italy at the age of 29 after marrying his second wife, Violante Visconti. He supposedly died from food poisoning and probably too many other excesses.........
But Mr. Trow wants to tease us a little bit so he moves Lionel's death to 1381 under the reign of his young and fragile nephew, the hapless Richard II, and makes his demise occur in Suffolkshire instead of the sun drenched landscape of Northern Italy. And it works because he gives us an amazing fictional feat centered around Lionel's suspicious death by poison (and not by food poisoning) and the subsequent investigation orchestrated by a genial 40 year old Geoffrey Chaucer, the celebrated poet who grew up as a ward of the late duke of Clarence.
An entertaining murder mystery set in the middle of a richly detailed & very compelling tapestry of late 14th century England full of delightful dialogues and a very twisty plot full of menacing and evil pitfalls, as we follow with some trepidation a clever and judicious Master Chaucer as he painstakingly tries to untangle all the clues that will lead him eventually to the person or persons responsible for the royal murder.....Never a dull moment with Mr. Trow and I love it! Can't wait for his next fictional journey!
Highly recommended and to be enjoyed without any moderation of course👍👍

Many thanks to Netgalley and Canongate/Severn for this terrific ARC

Sometimes it is the author who draws you to a book.

Based on previous reading pleasure you feel confident that you will almost certainly enjoy their latest offering. However, some titles of theirs don’t grip you; they may be interesting but other more pressing trends, subjects and recent reading habits may keep you from immediately picking up the book. It is therefore ‘stored’, categorised as “To be read” but will only ever likely to drift down that list unless fate intervenes.

Other new novels they release, may immediately resonate with you and these never get filed to join a passive list; they achieve almost overnight currently reading status. Must have, must read books in general media hype or personal desire to hold and read certain books.

M.J. Trow does historical crime fiction very well. I learn about a period in time, often less familiar while being entertained with clever stories that seem real and contemporary.

As with those individuals who feel they have lived a previous existence. No-one remembers it seems, their time as one of a 100 men in the Centurion Guard. No they walked the Earth in forgotten times as Julius Caesar or Cleopatra.

With this in mind this clever author has used his imagination to its productive best. Thus I have read one of his Charles Dickens mysteries and was delighted here to find a Geoffrey Chaucer tale with that English poet the central character and “private enquirer”.

A clever mind; imaginative and with some influence is what is required and Chaucer slips easily into that role in Trow’s inventive fictional murder mystery.

A Knight’s Tale is a clever title. One such person seeks out Chaucer in London to return with him to Suffolk and bring some clarity to the untimely death of a high ranking noble.

Full of humour; believable characters and a rich backdrop to the unfolding events, the story rattles along without loosing your interest; confusing you in its mystery or disappointing you in terms of action and life-threatening thrills. I was drawn to the book to learn more about the period, it’s history and the people of that time. Chaucer is something of a non-person to me so an ideal character to present before me. Knowing about but never having read the Canterbury Tales. Interested in Pilgrimage and a sucker for crime thrillers across time, locations and characters this book was just the story I needed to read at this time.

I’m sure it will not disappoint others drawn to such a novel or fans of this genre. The story is modern although well researched into its historical setting. It is colourful and draws on the feudal system, pageantry and conventions of its day. I was genuinely caught up in this fictional world and disappointed that the story ended. Plenty of intriguing relationships to explore and expand. I do hope these point to a series of titles based on Chaucer and his problem solving skills. Any further books released by this author in this particular series will go straight to currently reading and read before you could say “King John stole my throne.”

Sherlock Holmes meets Game of Thrones: this is how I would describe this book if you asked me to talk about it in just a few words. We have the beautiful and extremely detailed description of the series of Martin and a charismatic investigator like Holmes.

As our protagonist (and the one that gives name to the series) we have a fictionalized version of none other than Geoffrey Chaucer. This representation of the father of English literature will accompany us for the whole book with his witty humor, his smartness and sometimes even a bit of clumsiness. There are also a ton of other different figures acting in this story, and they are well characterized.

This first case that Geoffrey Chaucher will have to investigate starts off as the classic locked-room mystery but will soon escalate into something more, involving the various relationships of the Castle.

It’s not completely an historical novel and neither fully a crime novel but a mix of these two that gives life to an adventure that seems to have its own genre.

I really appreciated this book and I hope it will be only the beginning of a long and successful new series of novels!

Chaucer cancels his annual pilgrimage to Canterbury to attend the funeral of his mentor in M.J. Trow's new series.

The Geoffrey Chaucer that military historian Trow describes is a pragmatic, middle-aged man, fondly recalling his salad days while he and his boyhood friend hunt for the mentor's murderer.

Trow immerses the reader in the life of a castle in 1391. The food, the wenches, the animals, the intrigues. The five portly gentlemen representing the Guilds take starring roles in a raucous May Day presentation of religious tableaux;

The story is irreverent, compelling and so funny.