Grave of the Lawgiver (Sister Fidelma Mysteries Book 36)
Peter Tremayne’s long-running series of Celtic mysteries has now reached the 36th book. It is AD 673, and Sister Fidelma accompanies her husband, Eadulf, back to his hometown of Seaxmund’s Ham. He hopes to visit his pagan family to build bridges after his conversion to Christianity. Although Eadulf has been settled in Ireland, he cannot ignore this yearning to return to visit the landscapes of his youth.
However, in true Tremayne style, they arrive in East Anglia to find Eadulf’s uncle, Athelnoth, the lawgiver of the title, murdered, his house burned to the ground and Eadulf’s sister, Wulfrun, missing. Eadulf must solve the murder, assisted by Fidelma and both helped and thwarted by a cast of pagan and Christian locals. The investigation takes our intrepid pair across the marshy, bleak landscape of East Anglia.
Against this domestic backdrop, bigger events are unfolding. Following the Synod of Whitby ten years earlier, a meeting of all the Anglo-Saxon kings and bishops is taking place under a new Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodorus, whose aim is to unite the kingdoms under one Christian creed. Theodorus has been appointed by Vitalian, the bishop of Rome, so it is not difficult to predict which creed he will suggest. If accepted, this would mean the end of Hibernian Christianity in Britain.
As always with Tremayne’s novels, I really enjoyed the richness of information about the historical context: the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the conflict between Roman and Hibernian Christianity, the survival of paganism. We see growing tensions between Fidelma and Eadulf, and we wonder if their relationship will withstand the test of this new challenge. The murder mystery itself was somehow less satisfying, which is unusual in Tremayne’s work. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my romp through East Anglia, and Tremayne’s skilful handling of a complicated historical time of unsettling change.
