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Overview
575 AD: A baby is washed up on the Irish coast and is taken to the nearest abbey. He grows up to become a scholar and a monk, but, in early adulthood, he appears to have become possessed, scribbling endless strange verses in Latin. When the Abbott tries to have him drowned, he disappears. Later, his scribblings turn up as the Book of Bran, his writings translated as portents of the future. Violence and untimely death befall all who come into the orbit of this mysterious book.
Synopsis
575 AD: A baby is washed up on the Irish coast and is taken to the nearest abbey. He grows up to become a scholar and a monk, but, in early adulthood, he appears to have become possessed, scribbling endless strange verses in Latin. When the Abbott tries to have him drowned, he disappears. Later, his scribblings turn up as the Book of Bran, his writings translated as portents of the future. Violence and untimely death befall all who come into the orbit of this mysterious book.
Publishers Weekly
In the Medieval Murderers' absorbing fourth serial historical (after 2007's House of Shadows), six British mystery authors-Bernard Knight, Ian Morson, Michael Jecks, Philip Gooden, Susanna Gregory, C.J. Sansom-chart the impact of the Black Book of Brân over the centuries. In 574, the infant Brân washes ashore in Ireland with the eponymous book of prophesies, leading local churchmen to believe him to be demonic. More than 600 years later, the sinister tome causes havoc in Exeter when coroner John de Wolfe and cleric Thomas de Peyne must cope with priests who have caught gold fever during a killing spree. Brân's manuscript makes an implausible side trip to snowy 1262 Russia, but it's soon back in England amid mayhem in Westminster Abbey. The prophetic book, which has "a habit of bringing out the worst in people," winds up in an appropriately apocalyptic future of polar ice melt, nuclear war, earthquakes and floods. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Editorials
Publishers Weekly
In the Medieval Murderers' absorbing fourth serial historical (after 2007's House of Shadows), six British mystery authors-Bernard Knight, Ian Morson, Michael Jecks, Philip Gooden, Susanna Gregory, C.J. Sansom-chart the impact of the Black Book of Brân over the centuries. In 574, the infant Brân washes ashore in Ireland with the eponymous book of prophesies, leading local churchmen to believe him to be demonic. More than 600 years later, the sinister tome causes havoc in Exeter when coroner John de Wolfe and cleric Thomas de Peyne must cope with priests who have caught gold fever during a killing spree. Brân's manuscript makes an implausible side trip to snowy 1262 Russia, but it's soon back in England amid mayhem in Westminster Abbey. The prophetic book, which has "a habit of bringing out the worst in people," winds up in an appropriately apocalyptic future of polar ice melt, nuclear war, earthquakes and floods. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.