"The Abbot's Gibbet" by Michael Jecks

THE ABBOT’S GIBBET by Michael Jecks, of the Knights Templar series, finds a setting in the year 1319.  This is where Jecks’ enduring characters Sir Baldwin Furnshill, a former member of the Knights Templar, and Simon Puttock, bailiff of Lydford are traveling to the annual Tavistock fair.  Simon’s wife Margaret is looking to buy cloth, while Simon is hoping to add to the collection of plates he will need to entertain guests at Lydford.  Baldwin is merely along for the ride to Tavistock, the fair that draws merchants from all over England, filling the stalls to sell their goods.

One such merchant is Arthur Pope.  He has rented a house for his wife Marion and his daughter Avice to reside with him in for the duration of s business.  He fails to anticipate the two Venetians they meet along the road, Antonio and Pietro Cammino, a father and son who are heading in the same direction, yet with very different business interests. The two are looking to meet with Abbot Robert Champeaux, who has brought prosperity to the abbey in Tavistock through his own business dealings. 

In Tavistock, all parties on their way to the fair will encounter the port-reeve David Holcroft, the man in charge of law and order during the fair.  He is eager for his tenure as port-reeve to expire so as to return to the private life of the average citizen.  He pines away for Lizzie, the prostitute who favors men like Roger Torre, while seemingly disfavoring him.  He finds her in the company of the cook Elias, whom he warns with fines if the trash heap outside his residence is not removed in time for the opening day of the fair.

Elias makes the attempt to get rid of the trash, as he knows the fines are a cost he cannot afford, but he runs out of strength, as well as time, and the next day a dead body, absent its head, is found poorly buried underneath what remained of Elias’ refuse.

With the reputation Baldwin has gained for his investigative skills, Abbot Champeaux (as best as I can surmise, a governor of sorts) knows not what else to do but ask the man to investigate this sad turn of events.  The fair cannot be ruined by a murderer threatening peoples’ safety.  Baldwin leaps at the challenge (shopping at the fair was not an appealing prospect) and though he has met a widow, Jeanne, to whom he has taken a fancy, his efforts are expended on the investigation: why was this man killed; how was it done; who was the culprit, and who precisely was the victim?

Was it the stranger seen talking with Elias in the tavern the night before?  The clothes found upon the body are the same witnessed upon the man.  If so, where was Elias?  How was he to account for his actions?  What of the Venetians who traipsed into town?  Were they all they appeared to be?  Pietro was taken with Avice Pole since the moment he and his father came upon the Poles along the road.  Was that a good thing?  What of the young monk Peter?  What of the friar Hugo?  He preaches against the avarice inspired by such acquisition of profit the fair inspires.  Does anyone listen?

Mystery lovers who are unfamiliar with Michael Jecks will become fans after reading THE ABBOT’S GIBBET.  He sets up that particular element of the book very well, bringing into the setting of the Tavistock Fair a multitude of characters with a myriad of possibilities as to the nature of this grizzly crime.  The mystery aspect is superb.  It will not leave any reader unfulfilled.

Unfortunately, I did experience dismay in two other areas crucial to a complete book-reading experience: the characterizations were merely satisfactory, while the setting was completely anomalous.

I never managed a picture of these characters.  The setting never materialized for me.  I could never see the England of 1319 in which these characters lived.  The smells, the sounds, the very character of the roads, the abbey, the fair – all of it required, for me, and imagination that had very little knowledge from which to draw.   THE ABBOT’S GIBBET was a great story, told with old paint, by average actors.  I enjoyed the read, but I wanted to experience, as well, the environment.