Desolation by Keith Moray

 

Desolation by Keith Moray is a medieval mystery set in Yorkshire in 1361. It is a potent brew of violence and fear, with murders galore. This book, out on 17 October 2025, is the start of a new medieval mystery series.

Blurb:

Desolation

The Black Rood of Scotland, stolen.

A coroner of York, murdered.

An evil worse than plague itself, at large...

1361, York. As the country recovers from the war with France, and whispers that the pestilence has returned to England grow louder, fear is in the heart of every nobleman and commoner alike.

Sir Ralph de Mandeville, ex-soldier and newly appointed Justice of the Peace is sent to Langbarugh, just outside York, to investigate the murder of Coroner Sir Boderick de Whitby.

More deaths quickly follow, and while these are swifty dealt with as plague victims, Sir Ralph and his two assistants Merek and Peter soon uncover something altogether more horrifying... A greater evil is at large in the northern wapentakes.

As panic escalates and the lines between plague and murder blur, Sir Ralph is thrust into a desperate race against time. Every shadow hides a potential killer, every cough could be a death knell. Can he unmask a murderer lurking in the terrifying shadow of the Black Death before they're all consumed by a terror more sinister than any plague?

Set in and around York in 1361, the story follows Sir Ralph de Mandeville, a newly appointed Justice of the Peace. Tasked with finding the killers of the Coroner Sir Boderick de Whitby, Ralph and his assistants, Merek and Peter, travel to the wapentake of Langbarugh.

The peace between England and France is very fragile, and any minor trigger could bring a conflict. Then there is The Black Rood of Scotland being stolen from the shrine of the blessed St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral, which might present a potential threat from Scotland, where it could be used to rally an army. "And if one country sought war, the two may join together. The Auld Alliance as they call it!"

The wapentake of Langbarugh is a place where fear reigns. One death after another keeps most people behind the closed doors, as the rumours of a new wave of pestilence spread further afield.

"It had been thirteen years since the pestilence that they called the Great Death had ravaged the land and killed almost half the population of the country. Now there was talk that it might be returning, and it was only natural that people were fearful".

The plague victims all seem to succumb to the most horrible death during the night. De Mandeville and his side-kicks are trying to uncover several mysteries at the same time. There is a great evil at large, and it's not necessarily the plague.

Could Ralph and his loyal team find out the shocking truth?

Ralph is a decent investigator, he is perceptive, analytical and fearless. "Sir Ralph knew the law as well as any man in England and was always both fair and considered in his judgments".

While Merek and Peter provide brawn and brain to the given tasks, it's de Mandeville who assesses and evaluates the evidence, looking for clues. The three men understand each other well, and despite the differences in social standing, they are truly comrades, set on investigation.

"Several times they had found themselves in dangerous situations and had to fight and guard each other's backs. Each brought different fighting skills that somehow complimented each other".

I read a different medieval mystery by K.Moray a few years ago (The summoner's sins), and rather forgot that his stories revel in gory details. 

Desolation depicts so many sadistic murders that it feels like an overkill (no pun intended).

If you enjoy historical fiction with lots of gore, this book is for you. If you're squeamish, find something lighter to read.

Desolation is a suspensful, vivid and memorable tale of the dark and desperate times.

Potential triggers: multiple murders (including that of a child), death from plague, graphic violence, mutilation of corpses, extensive descriptions of plague symptoms.

Many thanks to Keith Moray and Rachel's Random Resources for my e-copy of the book!

Purchase Link - https://mybook.to/desolationsocial

Author Bio –

Keith is a retired GP, medical journalist and novelist, writing in several genres. As Keith Moray he writes historical crime fiction in the medieval era and in ancient Egypt, The Inspector Torquil McKinnon crime novels set on the Outer Hebridean island of West Uist, and as Clay More he writes westerns. Curiously, his medical background finds its way into most of his fiction writing.

Social Media Links – 

Facebook: @KeithMorayAuthor

Twitter: @KeithMorayTales

Instagram: @souterkeith

The Contraband Killings by Lucienne Boyce

 

I'm thrilled to invite Lucienne Boyce to my blog. Today she is talking about walking holidays in the 18C. Are you intrigued? Scroll down to find out more.

The Contraband Killings: A Dan Foster Mystery

Principal Officer Dan Foster of the Bow Street Runners is sent to collect smuggler Watcyn Jones from Beaumaris Gaol on Anglesey, and bring him back to London for trial at the Old Bailey. As if having to travel to the wilds of North Wales isn’t bad enough, Dan is saddled with an inexperienced constable as his interpreter and assistant. At least it’s a routine assignment and shouldn’t take more than a few days.

 

But when the prison escort is ambushed and Watcyn Jones escapes, a straightforward transfer turns into a desperate manhunt. And as Jones’s enemies start to die, the chase becomes more urgent than ever. Dan’s search for the killer brings him up against a ruthless smuggling gang – and his chances of getting off the island alive begin to look far from promising.

 

Purchase Links

US - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BFRRSD72

UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BFRRSD72

Author Bio –

Lucienne Boyce writes historical fiction, non-fiction and biography. After gaining an MA in English Literature, specialising in eighteenth-century fiction, she published her first historical novel, To The Fair Land (2012, reissued 2021), an eighteenth-century thriller set in Bristol and the South Seas.

Her second historical novel, Bloodie Bones: A Dan Foster Mystery (2015, reissued 2022) is the first of the Dan Foster Mysteries and follows the fortunes of a Bow Street Runner who is also an amateur pugilist. Bloodie Bones was joint winner of the Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016, and was also a semi-finalist for the M M Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction 2016. The second Dan Foster Mystery, The Butcher’s Block (2017, reissued 2022), was awarded an IndieBrag Medallion in 2018. The third in the series, Death Makes No Distinction (2019, reissued 2022), is also an IndieBrag Medallion honoree, recipient of Chill With a Book Premium Readers’ Award, and a joint Discovering Diamonds book of the month. In 2017 an e-book Dan Foster novella, The Fatal Coin, was published by S-Books. The Fatal Coin is now available in paperback.

The Bristol Suffragettes, a history of the suffragette campaign in Bristol and the South West of England, was published in 2013. In 2017 Lucienne published a collection of short essays, The Road to Representation: Essays on the Women’s Suffrage Campaign. 

 

Other Publications

 ‘Not So Militant Browne’ in Suffrage Stories: Tales from Knebworth, Stevenage, Hitchin and Letchworth (Stevenage Museum, 2019)

 ‘Victoria Lidiard’ in The Women Who Built Bristol, Jane Duffus (Tangent Books, 2018)

 ‘Tramgirls, Tommies and the Vote’ in Bristol and the First World War: The Great Reading Adventure 2014 (Bristol Cultural Development Partnership/Bristol Festival of Ideas, 2014)

 

Social Media

 

Website: www.lucienneboyce.com

Blog: https://francesca-scriblerus.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @LucienneWrite

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/LucienneBoyceWriter/

Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6437832.Lucienne_Boyce

A Pedestrian in Wales (guest post by Lucienne Boyce)

In The Contraband Killings Bow Street Runner Dan Foster, who is looking for an escaped prisoner on Anglesey, visits the famous copper mine on Parys Mountain. While there, he sees a group of tourists on a tour of the works. Among them is a young man who is making a sight-seeing journey through Wales on foot. 

Walking holidays – or pedestrian tours as they were known – were very popular with English holiday makers in the eighteenth century. Not only were they cheaper than travelling by coach, they were healthy, and gave the traveller the notion that he was seeing more than the average traveller bowling through the country in his stagecoach. Since very few of the tourists could speak Welsh, they were usually deluding themselves about how much they understood about the places they visited and the people they saw. 

But travellers will be travellers, and one thing many of them love to do is write a book about their adventures when they get home. The pedestrians of the eighteenth century were no exception, and there was an outpouring of ‘walks’, ‘tours’ and ‘pedestrian tours’ through Wales. I read some of these when I was researching The Contraband Killings.

Travellers went to Wales for a variety of reasons. Many went seeking picturesque and awe-inspiring landscapes. Those who fancied themselves as artists could consult the Welsh artist Edward Pugh’s Cambria Depicta: A Tour Through North Wales Illustrated With Picturesque Views (1816) which set out an artist’s itinerary. Pugh guided artists to “the mountain’s craggy side, the cwm’s solemn profundity, the frightful brink of the cataract…and the tufted banks of the serpentine afon”. Pugh, who was born in Ruthin, was a Welsh speaker, and liked to throw in the occasional Welsh word. He advised on the best outlooks; encouraged his readers to visit some of the less-known places – Conway Castle had been “repeatedly painted” and “from the same spot”; and told them which places weren’t worth their trouble: “The shore from hence to Holyhead is very tame, and offers nothing for the pencil”.

Others went seeking Druidical ruins. One of these was the Reverend John Skinner of Somerset, who described his excursion with his brother Russell in his Ten Days’ Tour Through the Isle of Anglesey. They crossed to the island in the tracks of the Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus whose troops attacked Anglesey; Boudica staged her rebellion while he was busy slaughtering Druids. Skinner sketched earthworks, standing stones and the prehistoric burial chamber at Plas Newydd (now owned by the National Trust); poked about in Bryn Celli Ddu burial chamber, disturbing nests of “immense spiders”; and copied out inscriptions he found in churches and on gravestones. 

Many budding mineralogists went to Wales: Pugh had promised his Cambria Depicta would also cater for their interests. The Reverend Richard Warner, who went with a friend on “A Walk Through Wales, in August 1797”, mentions collecting “good mineralogical specimens”. 107 Alongside his observations of ruins and landscapes, the Reverend also had an eye for the ladies. Clapping eyes on an innkeeper’s daughter near Dolgelly he noted “we had scarcely ever seen a girl more lovely or interesting”.

Others, as Pugh noted, went seeking “characters”: the Infant Hercules, eight years old, four feet two inches tall, and weighing nine stone; the witch Sian Bwt; Cady Thomas, the bearded lady; and bed-ridden Mary Thomas who had not eaten for seven years. Collecting – and where possible correcting – local superstitions was also popular with travellers. When Reverend Warner’s guide blamed his lameness on witchcraft, the Reverend tried to convince him his injury was due to natural causes. 

Skinner recorded tales of buried treasure, haunted stones, ignis fatuus, fairies and the “knockers” in the mines who led the miners to ore. He mocked the superstition of the “ignorant and illiterate”, and the ignorant and illiterate mocked back. The brothers went out in all weathers – rain, sleet, hail – and incurred “the ridicule of two old women who enjoyed a hearty laugh at our walking in the rain to hunt after stones”. 

But the young pedestrian in The Contraband Killings who attracts Dan’s attention has more than innocent tourism in mind, and it’s up to Dan to find out what murky deed he’s plotting… 

Lucienne Boyce

November 2022

www.lucienneboyce.com

To The Fair Land by Lucienne Boyce #BlogTour

 

"There are dreams that lure men on, rumours of lost lands and hidden cities, hidden treasure, fabled gold. The facts speak against such chimera, and the world labels the man who seeks them mad, but he will not abandon his quest. The thought of wealth or power is too much for him. That is your Fair Land."

To The Fair Land by Lucienne Boyce is a sumptious historical novel, with elements of thriller. 

1789: We meet Ben Dearlove, an aspiring and struggling young writer in the Covent Garden Theatre, attempting to watch The Life and Death of Captain Cook amidst the sounds of cheering and hooting. The theatre goers are fighting for better seats, there is a constant influx of latecomers, when a strange woman sits next to Ben. 

She scorns the action on stage, pronouncing it to be rubbish and gibberish. When she claims that Captain Cook, the nation’s darling of the moment, was a fool, the audience around her doesn’t take it kindly. Ben has to rescue the stranger from the incensed mob and take her home. The woman is ill, and in her delirium cries out the name Miranda. Not only her behaviour is unusual, she also has a tattoo - "the red bird on the woman's shoulder with its high crest and long tail was as delicate as a drawing from a monkish bestiary".

Ben kindly offers some money to the servant attending the gentlewoman, as it's obvious they are in dire straits. He considers what to do next, but then decides that he's not going to do anything else. "...why should he concern himself with these women? They were a pair of curiosities, to be sure, but London was full of curiosities..."

A few weeks later an anonymous novel An Account of a Voyage to the Fair Land becomes a literary sensation in London. What's peculiar is that the ship in the novel is named Miranda. Ben decides to find out who the mysterious author of the novel is, and believes the strange woman he met in the Covent Garden might help him with the information. If only he can find her, as she has disappeared seemingly without a trace.

The search for the anonyous writer proves to be more than Ben has bargained for. The danger seems to follow in his footsteps. While Ben tries to go after the elusive woman, there are menacing strangers shadowing him. How is the Admiralty involved in all this secrecy? 

Before the scandalous truth is revealed, Ben has to get out of prison, catch a thief and try to bring the murderer to justice.

To The Fair Land is a sharp, daring original story of forbidden love, good and evil, betrayal and murder. It dazzles with vigour, holding the suspence from the beginning to the last pages.

It resurrects a historical period and place with an enthralling involvement, and casts a modern angle on the collision of cultures, lambasting the "civilised against primitive society" belief.

This post is part of the blog tour!

Many thanks to Lucienne Boyce, SilverWood and Rachel's Random Resources for my copy of the book!

 

Purchase Links 

Amazon – Paperback and Kindle:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fair-Land-Lucienne-Boyce-ebook/dp/B00936U3C2

https://www.amazon.com/Fair-Land-Lucienne-Boyce-ebook/dp/B00936U3C2

SilverWood Books – Paperback - https://www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk/product/9781781320174/to-the-fair-land

Book Depository - https://www.bookdepository.com/Fair-Land-Lucienne-Boyce/9781781320174

Foyles - https://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/fiction-poetry/to-the-fair-land,lucienne-boyce-9781781320174

Barnes and Noble – Paperback and Nook Book - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/to-the-fair-land-lucienne-boyce/1111543434?ean=9781781320174

Apple Books https://books.apple.com/gb/book/to-the-fair-land/id733789778

Kobo - https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/to-the-fair-land-1

Author Bio – 

Lucienne Boyce writes historical fiction, non-fiction and biography. After gaining an MA in English Literature, specialising in eighteenth-century fiction, she published her first historical novel, To The Fair Land (SilverWood Books, 2012, reissued 2021), an eighteenth-century thriller set in Bristol and the South Seas. 

 

Her second novel, Bloodie Bones: A Dan Foster Mystery (SilverWood Books, 2015) is the first of the Dan Foster Mysteries and follows the fortunes of a Bow Street Runner who is also an amateur pugilist. Bloodie Bones was joint winner of the Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016, andwas also a semi-finalist for the M M Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction 2016. The second Dan Foster Mystery, The Butcher’s Block, was published in 2017 and was awarded an IndieBrag Medallion in 2018. The third in the series, Death Makes No Distinction, was published in 2019 and is also an IndieBrag Medallion honoree, recipient of Chill With a Books Premium Readers’ Award, and a joint Discovering Diamonds Book of the Month. In 2017 an e-book Dan Foster novella, The Fatal Coin, was trade published by SBooks. 

 

In 2013, Lucienne published The Bristol Suffragettes(SilverWood Books), a history of the suffragette movement in Bristol and the west country. In 2017 she published a collection of short essays, The Road to Representation: Essays on the Women’s Suffrage Campaign. 

 

Social Media Links – 

Twitter: @LucienneWrite

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LucienneWriter

Blog: http://francesca-scriblerus.blogspot.co.uk/  

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6437832.Lucienne_Boyce

Death Makes No Distinction (A Dan Foster Mystery no.3) by Lucienne Boyce #BlogTour

Odd, thought Dan, how dressing up murder in silks and satins instead of cheap cotton made it less acceptable...

Death Makes No Distinction by Lucienne Boyce is the third book in a Dan Foster Mystery series.
The book reads well as a standalone, though I imagine it would give a deeper insight in the family and police office relationships, if you've read the previous two books.
This is my first meeting with Dan Foster, who is a Bow Street Runner.

References to his background let us understand his character better. He comes from the world of extreme poverty and squalor, his mother having to sell her body for living. If it were not for his adoptive father Paul, who brought him up and gave him a decent start in life, Dan would be on the opposite side of the law.

The Georgian London is portrayed as a city of two opposites - from the opulence of the palaces and mansions, and the world where a five hundred guineas are easily thrown away in a single bet - to the destitute squalor of the poor hovels, where a human life is worthless.

And Dan in a way is a shuttle between the two worlds. He is the man of the law, but he also understands what it is to live in the abject poverty, deprived of the basic human needs.

To him, a human death is worth investigating, whether the victim was a beggar or a grand lady.

The novel starts with a discovery of a murder victim. "A beggar woman had been found dead in the outhouse of a public house at Holborn. Such deaths were not uncommon on a cold, damp night, especially if the deceased was very young or very old".
The young woman was brutally beaten up and raped. Nobody will miss her, nobody will lament her death. She is one of the unnamed victims, a nuisance to the owner of the outhouse who claims she keeps a respectable house.

Trying to find out who might have seen or heard anything related to the murder, Dan is late to his sister-in-law's wedding. Understandably, his wife is not amused. Being married to a Bow Street Runner, she has to endure his constant absences and inconvenient hours.

Setting out to solve the murder of the beggar woman, Dan is ordered to drop the case. He is wanted to work on the case of Louise Parmeter, the lady of the demi-monde, and the former mistress of the Prince, among many others. She's been found dead in her office, and now His Highness wants the killer to be brought to justice.

This is not an offer Dan can refuse. His job, position and living depend on it. Apart from the actual murder, there is a mystery of the missing manuscript, which Louise Parmeter was writing. "She often said that there were many who would prefer Memoirs of Herself and Others not to be published. She used to laugh and say she was going to dedicate it to "the Lords, Generals and Politicians of Great Britain". If the missing book is published, it will cause a great deal of embarrassment "of the most delicious kind".

Dan is committed to solving both murders. His persistent inquiries ruffle many feathers, and his family is targeted by the ruthless shadowy enemy.

Death Makes No Distinction is a skilfully crafted historical mystery. The Georgian London setting is vivid and dynamic, realistically constructed and true to life.
Looking forward to catching up with the previous books in this mystery series, and to the forthcoming book no.4.

This post is part of the blog tour. Please check out the other blog reviews.

Many thanks to Lucienne Boyce, Silverwood and Rachel's Random Resources for my copy of the book!

Author Bio:
Lucienne Boyce writes historical fiction, non-fiction and biography. After gaining an MA in English Literature in 2007, specialising in 18C fiction, she published her first historical novel, To The Fair Land, in 2012, an 18C thriller set in Bristol and the South Seas.

Her second novel, Bloodie Bones: A Dan Foster Mystery (2015) is the 1st of the Dan Foster Mysteries and follows the fortunes of a Bow Street Runner who is also an amateur pugilist.
Bloodie Bones was joint winner of the Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016, and was also a semi-finalist for the M M Bennetts Awards for Historical Fiction 2016.

The second Dan Foster Mystery, The Butcher's Block, was published in 2017 and was awarded an IndieBrag Medallion in 2018.

Lucienne has appeared on TV and radio in connection with her fiction and non-fiction work. She regularly gives talks and leads walks about the women's suffrage movement. She also gives talks and runs workshops on historical fiction for literary festivals, Women's Institutes, local history societies and other organisations.

Lucienne is currently working on the 4th full-length Dan Foster mystery, and a biography of suffrage campaigner Millicent Browne.

You can find her on Twitter as @LucienneWrite and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LucienneWriter