Traitor in the Ice
By K. J. Maitland
Blurb
Whispers haunt the walls and treachery darkens the shadows in this captivating historical novel for readers of C.J. Sansom, Andrew Taylor's Ashes of London and Kate Mosse.
Winter, 1607. A man is struck down in the grounds of Battle Abbey, Sussex. Before dawn breaks, he is dead.
Home to the Montagues, Battle has caught the paranoid eye of King James. The Catholic household is rumoured to shelter those loyal to the Pope, disguising them as servants within the abbey walls. And the last man sent to expose them was silenced before his report could reach London.
Daniel Pursglove is summoned to infiltrate Battle and find proof of treachery. He soon discovers that nearly everyone at the abbey has something to hide - for deeds far more dangerous than religious dissent. But one lone figure he senses only in the shadows, carefully concealed from the world. Could the notorious traitor Spero Pettingar finally be close at hand?
As more bodies are unearthed, Daniel determines to catch the culprit. But how do you unmask a killer when nobody is who they seem?
Our Review
Traitor In The Ice is set a year after the events of The Drowned City and fans of Daniel Pursglove will be pleased to see him back. I love the way the author's attention to detail enable the reader to be fully immersed in Jacobean society. My brief forays into historical fiction have generally been confined to more modern history so it made a nice change to read a book that focused on this time period. I was particularly intrugued by the politics of relations between the English and Scorttish at this time.
"Resentment of the Scots was growing by the day and rumours swirled through every street and village that all of the money raised by the fines on the English Catholics was being sent North of the border or lavished on the King's Scottish favourites."
Pursglove has his own moral code he follows and this along with his propensity for making enemies gets him into a lot of sticky situations in this book as much as in the first book of the series and this made for a very interesting read, my only criticism of the book is that the number of minor characters sometimes made it difficult to keep track of what is going on. There were definitely times I felt like an 'addleplated clotpole.'
"We fret and sweat over the choices that seem certain to tip the balance of our fortunes, but in truth it's not the crossroads of our lives that determine the lengths. It is the unseen thorn which which poisons our finger, the forgotten key we turn back for, the single careless step. It is these tiny pismires in our fragile lives that will ultimately cut them dead."
In this book Daniel Pursglove dices with death at every turn, he is strongly encouraged to attempt to infiltrate the abbey at Battle. There is more going on than in the abbey than simple religious dissent but is there a treasonous plot or something else occurring?
"You appear to have a liking for digging into murders. You uncovered the truth behind those at Bristol, even though this was not your mission. Well, then, this time it is. If Benet was silenced, then it was something far more dangerous to those at the abbey than mere recussery. Sperro Pettingar has still not been run to the ground. But someone knows who he is and where he is, and Lady Magdalen sits at the very heart of the Catholic Network."
There are so many different threads to follow in Traitor in The Ice and every one makes for a wonderful read.
Our Final Rating...
Read & Shared 11 Times.
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