GRIPPING MEDIEVAL MURDER MYSTERY DEFTLY WEAVES FACT AND FICTION
There are straight-forward and factual murder mysteries and complex fictional ones, but it takes real talent to write a murder mystery about real people set in a real medieval castle in France.
Magnus the Magnificent is just that strange creature — a compelling read that weaves fact and fiction; royalty and commoner and a little sexual exploration and skulduggery together without apparently breaking the metaphorical “fourth wall” of truth.
It’s a deft touch, if not a very fine line to walk. For the reader, Magnus the Magnificent will be a challenge, if only to refresh one’s memory of studying Shakespeare, the Hundred Years’ War and the life of both nobles and peasants in Medieval Europe. Take heart, though, it isn’t necessary to have an extensive knowledge of the time in order to enjoy the mystery itself. One doesn’t have to separate the authentic historical characters from the author’s imaginative ones, but knowing English and French history adds a layer of complexity to the story.
The book is set in 1422, just after the Battle of Agincourt when a much larger and more formidably armed French army is soundly defeated by Henry’s smaller cohort, his “band of brothers” armed with longbows. (England held onto a good chunk of France until 1453 and only relinquished its last French outpost, Calais, in 1558.)
I came late to the consumption of murder mysteries, having spent my youth devouring science fiction. But I’ve made up for my absence and am now in the grip of Donna Leon, Louise Penny, Anne Perry and Jo Nesbo (via the complete works of Michael Connolly and Elizabeth George.) I am nothing if not consumed by the genre. So when my friend and former colleague, Gordon Cope, sent me his medieval mystery, I could not resist.
While the spine of the novel is a murder mystery, the flesh surrounding it is a joy for the history buff aware of the fractious state of the English and French kingdoms and who inherits which title and from whom. Cope has clearly been steeped in history and, thanks to living in Paris (from which adventure came his non-fiction book, A Paris Moment) has a feet-onthe-ground knowledge of the French countryside surrounding Paris.
Magnus the Magnificent begins with rape and murder, followed by plot, intrigue and all sorts of skulking about the castle and grounds. The reader is caught up in the power struggle between the French and the English, between the royal houses and their peasants, servants and tradespeople and in the powerful influence (and corruption) of the Church.
Magnus — whose real name is Thomas Percival — was born an achondroplastic dwarf in 1384. (The condition results in a normal-sized torso, but shortened arms and legs. It is the most common form of dwarfism and is caused by a mutated gene.) He becomes court fool to Henry V and accompanies the king and his court to France.
The entire tale takes place in the castle of Vincennes outside Paris, in which Henry V actu-
ally died. There is a plot to kill the king. That, in fact, is history. But who is plotting it? Who kills the tavern keeper and “disappears” the daughter’s fiance? How corrupt is the bishop? Why do people turn up dead?
Magnus and his friend, Friar Petronius, are determined to find the answers and stay alive in the doing. In the process, Magnus escapes death by drowning after being wrapped in a fishing net and tossed into the river.
The book is not all dark plots: there are credible scenes of village life; equally credible scenes of the soldiers’ lot and one of the funnier moments to imagine is Magnus being forced to hide under the voluminous skirts of his erstwhile lover, at once stifled and excited by her body.
If I have a quibble, and it’s a personal one, it’s that Cope has a tendency to be florid in his overuse of language and that language sometimes sounds too modern in terms than appropriate for the time. But, as I have no idea what medieval English or French sounded like — with the exception of having to listen to a university roommate recite Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English — I’m unwilling to criticize too harshly.
I await the next Magnus-Petronius adventure.