This Just Read: The Killer of Pilgrims

I just finished Susannah Gregory's The Killer of Pilgrims on my Kindle. It's the sixteenth book in her series featuring Matthew Bartholomew, a physician in 14th century Cambridge. I've only read one other of the series, the one immediately preceding this one.

I'm a fan of several historical mystery series,especially the Joliffe series by Margaret Frazer and the Templar Knight Mysteries by Maureen Ash. I read them as an antidote to the other, serious reading I like to (and sometimes have to) do. Currently I'm a quarter-way into Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August--a very serious read. I needed a break and decided to try a second book in this series.

I like the historical mystery settings. I generally find them well written with a good bit of historical flavor. Having lived in England, I can connect with some of the settings (e.g. Lincoln or Canterbury).

The main characters in these series usually have a few modern quirks--anachronisms that set them apart from the other characters and make them more like us. Matthew Bartholomew, for example, is an unusual physician. He looks for actual organic causes of illness, rather than consulting horoscopes to treat his patients, like the other (more respectable) physicians in town.

So, I just finished The Killer of Pilgrims and found it pretty exhausting. It depicts a series of thefts and murders set against the backdrop of inter-college rivalries in 14th-century Cambridge. I have no doubt the historical details are accurate; these books stand or fall on their historicity. That said, in the wake of last week's shooting spree at UC Santa Barbara, my heart just wasn't ready for a tale filled with such callous indifference to human life. The major and minor characters in The Killer of Pilgrims seem ready to run each other through for the slightest insult. Maybe it's accurate, I didn't care.

I finished it, and may well try another one some day. But not today.