‘Father, if you give her any more of your wine, Mother won’t be able to stay on her horse,’ his daughter called cheerfully.Īrthur stifled a smile as his wife snapped back waspishly. ‘Would you like to halt and refresh yourself? We have wine, if-’ It had been ruinously expensive, for training a horse in such a gait was difficult, but the gift was necessary to compensate her for having to make this journey at the height of the humid summer heat. An amblere, it was trained to give a lady a smooth ride, swinging first the legs of one side of its body, then the other, always moving left together, then right. Marion, his wife, was a few yards behind him on her new mare. Arthur Pole wiped his face with the hem of his cloak to clear the fine dust that rose from the road in thin clouds as hooves and cartwheels stirred it. The sun was almost unbearably hot, the journey distinctly uncomfortable.

‘His research is painstaking down to the smallest detail, his characters leap alive from the page, and his evocation of setting is impressive’įor Andy and Mandy, the best friends anyone could hope for. ‘Each page is densely packed with cuckolding, coarseness, lewdness, lechery, gore galore, but also with nobility. Devon and Cornwall do not seem the same after reading his dramatic tales’ ‘Jecks writes with passion and historical accuracy. ‘A tremendously successful medieval mystery series’ ‘A gem of historical storytelling… authentic recreation of the modes and manners, superstitions and primitive fears that made up the colourful but brutal tableau of the Middle Ages’ ‘Jecks’ knowledge of medieval history is impressive, and is used here to great effect’ ‘Torturous and exciting… The construction of the story and the sense of the period are excellent’

‘If you care for a well-researched visit to medieval England, don’t pass this series’ ‘Michael Jecks is the master of the medieval whodunnit’ ‘The most wickedly plotted medieval mystery novels’

The Abbot's Gibbet by Michael Jecks