"The Squire's Tale" by Margaret Frazer

The Squire's Tale by Margaret Frazer. Berkley; Reissue edition (December 1, 2001) ISBN-13: 978-0425182710

The Squire's Tale by Margaret Frazer is an absolutely delightful medieval who-done-it with the starring investigator of Dame Frevisse. She's a nun and like other people in fiction serials who are good at solving crimes also appears to find herself in the midst of them time after time. As my husband says occasionally when we watch other who-done-it shows on television, "They ought to lock her up."

This is the second of Margaret Frazer's tales I've read and, as with the first, I was captivated. This is not just your everyday who-done-it. This shows into the heart of times medieval, of the 1400's. It looks at spirituality that never gets old. It looks at the place of women in the society of medieval times.

At the end I cried. It was also a love story and, for me, the mark of a "good" book is that I cry at the end.

As time goes by I expect to see more reviews for this author. You can read more about Margaret Frazer on Wikipedia.

An interesting side note to my reading of this book relates to the first one I read. I'd spotted her books some time before in the library, however, at the time I had a full load to read and there wasn't room right then to select one of her books. But, I remembered some time later that I wanted to read one of Margaret's books. Except, I couldn't find them in the library. I knew they were located in the mystery section. So, I passed back and forth looking. The problem was I also couldn't remember the name of the author. A lady joined me in the stacks looking for her own mystery and I asked her if she knew of a writer of medieval mysterys with a nun as the lead character. No, she was sorry, but she didn't know and right at that very instant my eyes looked down to the lower shelf right in front of us and I spied the books in question. I thanked her for her help. She protested that she hadn't helped me at all and I said, "No, but you did. If I hadn't stopped to speak with you I would never have found them today."