Conceived at a Black Mass of a madwoman reputed to be the daughter of a witch, Lamia is on her own at an early age, after she is forced to watch her mother burn and is turned out of her village. Surviving on her own, she is rescued by a myserious woman and raised by a cloth merchant in a nearby village. Lamia grows to young womanhood with one thing on her mind: to destroy the Bishop Geoffroi as he had destroyed her mother and her rescuer Peronnette, as dear to her as a second mother. She swore to see him not only dead but burned as he had burned so many innocent women. With the help of her partron Marco, an alchemist and Satanist himself, and his coven, she carefully lays her plans. But when something goes wrong, Lamia herself faces torture and the stake, and her escape may bring danger and death to the man she loves.

This is a good, fast read, though not entirely believable. The setting is France in the early 1500s, when science, alchemy, medicine and Satanism were intertwined, and an innocent activity one day was heresy the next. The witches in this book aren't in fact peaceful Goddess-worshippers but actual Satanists, sometimes eating babies, poisoning enemies, and casting spells. Black Masses are endemic, attended by bored nobility, cynical clergy, and poor people with a grudge against the Church or simply with nothing left to lose. It is realistic in that things don't work out always for the best, justice isn't completely done and the ending is only so happy. Though not recommended for heavy background on a late-period French persona, it is a good story and an intriguing look at a time and place that is infrequently used as the setting for a novel.

Title: Absolution by Murder : A Sister Fidelma Mystery Author: Tremayne, Peter New American Library (September 1997) Mass Market Paperback - 272 pages ISBN: 0451192990 Dimensions (in inches): 0.79 x 6.83 x 4.26

Sister Fidelma of the Abbey of St. Brigid of Kildare is not only a nun but a dalaigh, or advocate of the Irish law courts, has been summoned to an important conclave in Northumbria to advise on Irish legal issues. The King of Northumbria has called for representatives of both the Celtic and the Roman Catholic Church to present their views of the Catholic liturgy and ritual, at which point King Oswy will decide whether his kingdom will follow the Roman or Celtic tradition. To Fidelma's delight, her friend Abess Etain has been chosen as the primary speaker for the Celtic Church. But that's not the only news: Fidelma is surprised when Etain tells her in confidence that she will soon resign as abbess to get married! The conclave has barely begun when Etain is found murdered in her chamber. In the interests of fairness, King Oswy asks both Fidelma, of the Celtic church, and Brother Eadulf, of the Roman church, to investigate the murder. Was Etain murdered to disrupt the conclave, either by the Roman side, to keep her from speaking, or the Celtic side, to stir up bad feeling towards the Roman side? Was she murdered because she stumbled into a plot to kill King Oswy? Or is there another, more personal, reason? Sister Fidelma needs to solve the mystery quickly, which she does, with the help of the exasperating but oddly compelling Brother Eadulf.

This is the first novel-length mystery for Sister Fidelma, who before has only appeared in short stories. The inevitable comparisons to Brother Cadfael are slightly misplaced; not only does Fidelma get out more and become more personally involved in politics, but Tremayne isn’t the writer Ellis Peters was. The style can be somewhat clunky; Sister Fidelma described at the beginning, then described IN EXACTLY THE SAME WORDS by the next three people she meets. And while her refusal to acknowledge her attraction to Brother Eadulf is somewhat charming, her literal inability to recognize it is somewhat tiresome; she's NEVER been in love? Since this was a time when the religious weren't expected to be celibate (except for abbots and abbesses) and indeed there were "double houses" where nuns and monks lived side by side, her naivete was less than believable. Still, the historical period is fascinating especially the clashes between factions in the Church, and the contrast between Ireland, with its unprecedented rights and freedoms for women and it's reputation as a center of learning, and the harsher and less forgiving Saxon lands. The history is much better than the mystery, and it is this background that keeps the reader reading. I expect the writing to improve in future novels, and I look forward to Fidelma's further adventures.