Satan is a Devil

Brother Anselm and his novice Stephen are summoned to St. Michael’s Parish. The church has been the site of recent hauntings, and the mysterious warlock known as the Midnight Man is blamed for a demonic midnight ceremony that opened the very gates of Hell on the parish. But as Brother Anselm explained, these (undoubtedly) supernatural phenomena must have a human cause—its root lies in the wickedness of a human heart. And so in order to weed out these demons, Brother Anselm must find the human cause of their wickedness. Stir in plenty of ghostly Gothic atmosphere, and don’t forget that impossible crime that takes place in a locked church. And ta-da! you have the plot of Paul Doherty’s The Midnight Man.

Paul Doherty’s latest effort is a return to his Canterbury Tales series, which is my personal favourite. The premise of this series is that the pilgrims of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales have made an agreement that, at night, each of them should tell a story about the night-time, a story to chill the blood. (This time, it’s the physician’s turn, although there isn’t a physician appearing anywhere in the story.) And so, in these stories, the supernatural goes without question. God exists, and just as importantly, so does Satan—but their inclusion doesn’t mean that you can’t have a fairly clued mystery thrown into the works!

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei ora pro nobis peccatoribus...

Paul Doherty’s An Ancient Evil was an excellent book, but it also set the bar for his “Canterbury Tales” series very high. This begs the question: would other books in the series rise up to the occasion, or would they fall short of the first book? However, being a foolish mortal, I skipped A Tapestry of Murders (Being the Man of Law’s Tale) and A Tournament of Murders (Being the Franklin’s Tale) and I went right to 1997’s Ghostly Murders, Being the Priest’s Tale.

Ghostly Murders is told by the Poor Priest, and the introduction is bone-chilling, as we see the Spectantes (“Watchers”) and hear them chant their ominous words to the priest: “Spectamus Te! We are watching you!” As in An Ancient Evil, the priest is prompted to tell his story, and as he goes on, we get more and more hints that this story really took place.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"

Welcome once again to a special edition of At the Scene of the Crime! As you probably know by now, I am celebrating my 100^th blog post with an extravaganza of crossover reviews, joined by various other mystery bloggers. Today, The Puzzle Doctor has kindly joined me from his blog over at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel. In fact, it was this same mathematician who, back in July, posted an enticing review of Nightshade by Paul Doherty. That post started an avalanche of Paul Doherty reviews in the mystery blogging community, and I was intrigued from the get-go. At the time, I commented:

“Ok, not fair. After plenty of talks with Curt Evans, here I am with a huge list of books by guys like R. Austin Freeman and JJ Connington, and here you go intriguing me with a completely different book!”

But if you scroll down just a wee bit, you’ll find another comment by John from Pretty Sinister Books, who wrote the following: “I also like the Canterbury Tales series especially since they show Doherty’s proclivity for the inclusion of supernatural elements in a detective novel. AN ANCIENT EVIL is one of the most frightening books about the vampire cult in old Romania I have ever read.”

This intrigued me: a series of mysteries centered on The Canterbury Tales, with supernatural elements? And that comment on An Ancient Evil from such a prolific blogger was too fascinating to resist... So it seemed like an ideal book to read and review with The Puzzle Doctor (a.k.a. Steve), who is responsible for this Doherty craze in the first place.

Steve, the crime scene is all yours! Thank you for joining me!