DEATH AT ST. VEDAST
by
Mary Lawrence
Bianca
Goddard is back! Her adventures continue in Mary Lawrence’s latest book, Death At St. Vedast, available December
27, 2016.
Mary Lawrence’s Bianca Goddard
Mystery series are Historical Fiction set in Tudor England. We first met Bianca
in The Alchemist’s Daughter (reviewed
March 24, 2015) and were reunited with her in The Death of An Alchemist (reviewed January 4, 2016). Death At St. Vedast is Lawrence’s third
installment in the series.
Bianca
Goddard is the Alchemist’s daughter. She creates balms and salves and the like
in her room of Medicinals and Physickes, where she also performs her
experiments and chemistries. Bianca’s husband, John, is apprentice to the
silversmith, Boisvert. As Boisvert is getting married and moving, John arranges
for them to move to Boisvert’s rent that adjoins the forge. The conditions of
the arrangement, however, require that Bianca “forgo her chemistries” (Advance
Reader’s Edition p. 14). Needless to say, Bianca was reticent about the
impending move.
While
moving to the new home, Bianca encounters the body of a dead woman at St.
Vedast Chuch, the nearby church where Boisvert is to be married. Was it
“self-murder”? Was the woman pushed? Did she fall? Naturally, the curious
Bianca wants to know. But, as the threads tied to the woman’s death weave
closer to home, Bianca becomes curiouser. There is trouble at St. Vedast, and
it impacts Boisvert’s wedding. More deaths follow. Although these appear to be
disparate, isolated incidents, Bianca perseveres. By following the few,
meandering, twisting-turning threads, she is able to tie them together and
solve the mystery.
As I have
said in previous reviews of Lawrence’s work, the Bianca Goddard series provides
a refreshing look at Tudor England, as Bianca is neither royal nor noble – she
is simply common. However, Bianca is anything but ordinary. She is an intelligent
and refreshing heroine.
Death At St. Vedast is a well written,
good, solid mystery. As with Death of An
Alchemist, Lawrence includes a much appreciated Author’s Note at the end of
Death At St. Vedast, although I would
have liked to read more there about the mysterious illness encountered by
Bianca. Completing Death At St. Vedast
has left me feeling as I did after completing the first two Bianca Goddard
mysteries: I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of
Bianca’s adventures.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
