Dame Frevisse Mystery
3 primary works
Book 1
It is the year of Our Lord's grace 1431, and the nuns of England's St. Frideswide sweetly chant their Paternosters behind gracious, trellised walls. But their quiet lives are shattered by the unwelcome visit of the hard-drinking, blaspheming dowager Lady Ermentrude, with her retinue of lusty maids and men, baying hounds, and even a pet monkey in tow. The lady demands wine, a feast, and her niece, the frail and saintly novice Thomasine.
What she gets is her own strange and sudden death.
Sister Frevisse, hosteler of the priory and amateur sleuth, fears murder. The most likely suspect is pious Thomasine . . . but Frevisse alone detects a clever web spun to entangle an innocent nun in the most unholy of passions--and the deadliest of deeds.
Book 2
It's Christmas time, and the sisters of St. Frideswide cannot turn away travellers - even the theatre players knocking at the nunnery door. But along with the motley troupe comes the grievously wounded husband of the cloister's scullery maid, Meg. The actors swear they found the drunken wastrel in a ditch, but their tale sounds remarkably like another song and dance. Especially when two dead bodies are found waiting in the wings...Now, Sister Frevisse must find out if one of the actors is a murderer in masquerade or face a deadly Yuletide season..
Book 18
Dame Frevisse must determine whether Sister Cecely, newly returned to the nunnery with her young son, is truly interested in repenting for her sins—or if she’s just in hiding after involvement in schemes that threaten everyone at St. Frideswide.