The Spider's Web

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The fifth book in the Irish medieval mystery series finds Sister Fidelma investigating a murder in a seemingly tranquil town, only to uncover a web of secrets that everyone wants to keep hidden. And now she must race to discover the truth before she becomes the next victim...."[Sister Fidelma is] a brilliant and beguiling heroine."-Publishers Weekly "The literary successor to Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael."-Southern Star (Ireland)"A treat for history buffs who devoured Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization."-BooklistFrom Publishers WeeklyRich with Irish lore, Tremayne's fifth entry in his Sister Fidelma series (following The Subtle Serpent) introduces readers to further Celtic law, religion and mores in a multilayered search for a cold-blooded killer. In A.D. 668, Fidelma, an advocate in the law courts of Ireland, is sent by her brother, the king of Muman, to investigate the murder of a Celtic chieftain. Though a blind, deaf mute named M?en was found holding a bloody knife near the chieftain's corpse, Fidelma and her Saxon friend Eadulf are not convinced that the man is guilty. For one thing, M?en is also supposed to have killed the chieftain's sister, who raised M?en since he was a babe, and Fidelma finds it hard to believe that in one night the blind deaf-mute would slay the two people in his compound who had befriended him. As Fidelma and Eadulf scrutinize the evidence, they cast about for other suspects among the chieftain's family and subjects. They find a daughter who hated her father and quickly took power after his death, a wife who scorned her husband, a cleric whose religion leans toward Roman practices and a wealthy cousin who assumed that he was the chieftain's heir. Despite several threats to their lives, the sleuthing sister and her sidekick persist and finally ferret out the culprit. In painstaking detail, Tremayne follows Fidelma's careful analysis of the facts while spicing the narrative with asides on the battle between Roman Catholic and Celtic views of theology and law. Though the secondary characters lack complexity, Fidelma's own is strong enough to carry the story, albeit slowly, to its finale. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistWhile most of seventh-century Europe was shrouded in intellectual darkness, Ireland enjoyed a period of unprecedented enlightenment. During this era, Irish universities flourished and women were accorded the same rights, protections, and professional responsibilities as men. As an advocate of the seventh-century Brehon courts, Tremayne's Sister Fedelma, a legal scholar and expert in both criminal and civil codes, is once again charged with the task of gathering and assessing the evidence in a perplexing murder case. When Eber, chieftain of the rural outpost of Araglin, is brutally stabbed to death, Fedelma's brother, the king of Muman, requests that she undertake an investigation and see that justice is dispensed. Though most of Eber's clansmen are eager to implicate a defenseless deaf-mute in the homicide, Fedelma exposes an array of suspects and motives. As she delves deeper into the past, she uncovers a shocking family secret and a tangled web of hatred, deceit, and greed. Margaret Flanagan