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To Kill or Cure

The Thirteenth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew

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To Kill or Cure

By: Susanna Gregory
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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Cambridge University is in dire financial straits: the town's landlords are demanding an extortionate rent rise for the students' hostels, and the plague years have left the colleges with scant resources. Tension between town and gown is at boiling point and soon explodes into violence and death. Into this maelstrom comes a charismatic physician whose healing methods owe more to magic than medicine, but his success threatens Matthew Bartholomew's professional reputation - and his life....

©2017 Susanna Gregory (P)2017 Little Brown Book Group Crime Fiction Fiction Historical Mystery Traditional Detectives Detective Crime
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One of the best Matthew Bartholomew books. Gripping story and lots of fun! Had to laugh out loud many times! Brilliant!

One of the best!!!!

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This is possibly my favourite so far, working through from the beginning. They are always better in my opinion when the motley crew at Michael House are involved and in this story much time was spent there. Fair enough Clixby and Sutton were missing but Brother William was on form with his rabid hatred of Dominicans, whom he blames for everything with such uncompromising virulence that it always makes me laugh. Plenty of twists and turns and Matthew and Michael are as slow as ever but then with Matthew's naivety and basic goodness and Michael not being able to pass the Brazen George for some nosh and ale, it is no wonder. The usual high mortality rate but our intrepid duo plod on regardless, going round in circles whilst they occasionally manage to carry out their teaching roles. Death or no these books are such fun.

One of the Best

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Enjoyed David Thorpe the narrator. He has really helped me to produce a good mind picture of each character. He enhances the story. Typical intricate plot, but that is why I like it. Am able to listen to this again and again. I regularly go through the whole collection every few years.
Haven’t found anything of the same standard of writing to compare. Language use excellent and no sex scenes or bad language included. Which just goes to prove that good entertainment can be achieved without such salacious material being included.

Excellent plots and subplots.

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the ever reliable pairing of author & narrator . the only negative being poor production & very distracting editing .

written & performed as good as ever

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Im wading through the whole series and the last three were a big improvement on the early ones.....but this one falls back into the old style of the early books. 95% of the book is made up of complex detective work to uncover the killer only for the last 30 pages to reveal someone totally different (much to the shock of our two intrepid sleuths). Don't get me wrong ,I like the books, the characterisations are good and you soon grow to like the main players (even to oddballs at the university) and the research is (usually good) but you lose interest in the detective work because, if you have read others in the series, you know it's all for nothing in the end.
This story was complex and looked at some interesting aspects of life in Cambridge in the 14th cent but unusually the research was poor in this book leading the reader to believe life was easy and jolly in the 14th cent . for most, it was not,(examples that stand out are, the happy husband and his prostitute wife and their 19 thriving children, the truth is anyone in the particularly dirty town of Cambridge at that time would be well above the average if 5 of the 20 children lived into there teens, but then again the doctor who is the main man in the book seems to cure 95% of all ailments so perhaps I'm wrong).
for the most part, the books are good at informing the reader about how life worked in this period but because so much of the research (even easy things) is wrong you don't know what to believe and what to ignore . Thinking about it the life in the university is pretty much always correct and life in town very often wrong. But I like the players and the books are easy listening while working so ill be pushing on towards the last in the series.

Falling back into old ways

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