Well, it's been 8 days and two books since I read it, and I now can remember nothing about what happened. A bunch of people probably died? And monks were probably shown to be at least as flawed as the townspeople? I remember enjoying reading it, though.

This was leisurely... Super leisurely, 500 pages worth of leisurely. I don't think there was enough twists and turns to warrant 500 pages, I skipped 50 or so only to find nothing had happened and I'd not missed anything.

Maybe a better editor. Gregory also needs to work on the dialogue between characters which I don't find convincing myself.

Apart from that, good holiday read and interesting discovering more about Ely and the lives of monks.

A good proportion of my enjoyment of these books is that they're set in the cities I know well and I particularly enjoyed the history of Ely as a pre-draining-of-the-fens small city dominated by religious buildings.

Without that personal connection, I probably would have docked a star.

Non-specific spoilers ahead: The mystery was convoluted and rested on a few weird coincidences. It feels like messy writing that characters were apparently convinced someone was crushed by falling masonry but then she were completely fine with not even a scratch. I can't really picture what that looks like: Was she visibly under a chunk of rock? If not, why didn't they check on her? If she was under at least some debris, how was she totally uninjured? Add to that, she was still & silent during the dramatic moment they all thought she'd died but luckily regained consciousness right at the dramatic/comic moment for the reveal... or that more than one hand to hand fights ended with both main protagonists totally unable to identify who they were fighting with. I get that medieval buildings are dark at night but there seemed to be a lot of plot-driven, witness-couldn't-quite-work-something-out-until-a-convenient-moment. Just a lot of coincidence.

Gregory continues to be a bit oddly concerned with characters overeating and how "grotesque" fat people are, and her depiction of a woman who is implied to have learning difficulties and enjoy sex is also problematic.

Despite all that, I'll probably continue to read a couple of these a year and enjoy the historical atmosphere

A very good historical novel. Great characters.

Another great Bartholomew mystery