Here’s the blurb
A BRAND NEW wickedly dark medieval mystery from Keith Moray. If you like your murder truely gruesome – this series is for you! 🩸☠️🗡️
The Black Rood of Scotland, stolen.
A coroner of York, murdered
An evil worse than plague itself, at large…
1361, York. As the country recovers from the war with France, and whispers that the pestilence has returned to England grow louder, fear is in the heart of every nobleman and commoner alike. Sir Ralph de Mandeville, ex-solider and newly appointed Justice of the Peace is sent to Langbarugh, just outside York, to investigate the murder of Coroner Sir Boderick de Whitby.
More deaths quickly follow, and while these are swiftly dealt with as plague victims, Sir Ralph and his two assistants Merek and Peter soon uncover something altogether more horrifying… A greater evil is at large in the northern wapentakes.
As panic escalates and the lines between plague and murder blur, Sir Ralph is thrust into a desperate race against time. Every shadow hides a potential killer, every cough could be a death knell. Can he unmask a murderer lurking in the terrifying shadow of the Black Death before they’re all consumed by a terror more sinister than any plague?
Purchase Link
https://mybook.to/desolationsocial
Here’s my review
Desolation is the first book I’ve read by Keith Moray. I think the cover is fabulous and very evocative.
The story is intriguing, with a wide cast and it takes quite some time until we finally meet Ralph de Manville because there are so many other characters to meet first. I do hope that in later books in the series, Ralph will enter the narrative a little quicker.
It is quite a complex plot, because the narrative switches between characters so much. The reader does have to work to make sense of what’s happening. We are told certain things, but not others – so we know what’s happening but not necessarily who is doing it. The body count is HUGE!
When Ralph finally begins to make sense of what’s happening, the resolution comes quite quickly, and the ending is certainly satisfying.
I read a lot of mysteries. If I don’t work out ‘who did it’ I am always impressed, although with Desolation there are so many people implicated, it does feel as though there are a lot of people to guess. I worked out some elements, but not others, and I did very much enjoy the mystery element of the story.
Meet the author
Keith is a retired GP, medical journalist and novelist, writing in several genres. As Keith Moray he writes historical crime fiction in the medieval era and in ancient Egypt, The Inspector Torquil McKinnon crime novels set on the Outer Hebridean island of West Uist, and as Clay More he writes westerns. Curiously, his medical background finds its way into most of his fiction writing.
Connect with the author
MJ Porter 