Monday, May 29, 2006

Will The Cup of Ghosts Be Your Cup of Tea?

I'm not generally a fan of mysteries, except for those of P. D. James, but if it's about Edward II, I'll buy it, so naturally I eagerly awaited The Cup of Ghosts by the amazingly prolific Paul Doherty (not only does he manage two or three novels a year, he's a school headmaster). It's the first of a promised series featuring Mathilde, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabella.

Mathilde, who has been training as a physician in Paris under the supervision of her beloved uncle, finds her world shattered when King Philip begins persecuting the Knights Templar, an order to which her uncle belongs. To save Mathilde's life, her doomed uncle sends her to the house of a friend, who in turn sends Mathilde to the household of young Princess Isabella. Sexually abused by her loutish brothers and full of hatred toward her father, Isabella regards Mathilde with suspicion at first, but becomes her devoted friend when Mathilde chases Isabella's drunken brothers out of her bedchamber. In the meantime, several people have died horribly, in and out of court, and more deaths follow when Isabella marries Edward II and travels to England. Shrewd and with a physician's eye for unnatural death, Mathilde is a natural to investigate what she realizes must be murders--and a natural target for murder herself.

I admit that as the body count grew higher and higher in this novel, my interest began to flag somewhat--I would have liked fewer corpses and more time to get to know the living. Still, there's a lot to like here. As Alianore in her review noted, Edward II and Isabella are attractively portrayed (though I doubt whether Isabella's brothers merited their portrayal here as child molesters, and incestuous ones at that). I particularly liked Mathilde. Resourceful, courageous, tough, and at the same time kindly and warmhearted, Mathilde is a heroine I look forward to seeing again.

6 comments:

Marg said...

I am partial to a mystery!!! I've requested this from the library so will see how it goes.

Kathryn Warner said...

Doherty seems to have invented the sexual abuse as an explanation of why Isabella hated her brothers. He states in his Author's Note that Isa did terrible damage to her family because of her hatred, but I don't know what he means - I'm not aware of anything that suggests she hated her family.

Susan Higginbotham said...

That gave me pause too--things seem to have gone swimmingly when she visited in 1313 for her brothers' knightings, and if she was the one who exposed the adultery of her sisters-in-law, she presumably did so out of loyalty to her brothers.

Gabriele Campbell said...

I'm not partial to mystery, but if I come across the book, I'll take it up. Could make for some nice travel reading when I'm going to hunt some Roman remains and Mediaeval cathedrals in Britain come autumn. ;)

Susan Higginbotham said...

Cathedrals? I'm jealous! Which ones?

Gabriele Campbell said...

I plan a 10-12 day trip around London, including Winchester, Chichester, Canterbury, Colchester, Cambridge and Oxford. And what other places in this area I can reach by public transport. If there's any money left I'll try to include a tour north and spend 2-3 days at the Hadrian's Wall. That depends on the prices for B&B, food, transport and all that jazz - and me not buying a dozen books in the first two days. ;)