Badger's Moon

Set immediately after the events recounted in Badger's Moon, this story begins with the return of the Irish princess and advocate Fidelma, and her Saxon husband Eadulf, from Rath Raithlen to Cashel, where they find that their baby has disappeared and his nurse Sárait been brutally murdered.

Naturally, everyone assumes that the point of the crime was the abduction of the royal baby, either because he is who he is, or in revenge for some past action taken by his mother Fidelma in her capacity as advocate and investigator, and that the murder of the nurse, Sárait, was incidental.

It transpires, however, that Sárait was tricked into leaving the King's House by means of a note purporting to be from her sister, and that there was no reason to suppose that she would bring the baby with her; quite the reverse.

So why would anyone have wanted to murder the nurse? And what has happened to Fidelma's baby?

Meanwhile, Fidelma and her (temporary) husband are quarrelling (she is so arrogant sometimes that not only her husband but we the readers lose all sympathy with her) and eventually Eadulf rides off on his own following a clue that he believes may lead him to the baby. Fidelma, left on her own, receives a ransom note which, after some hesitation, she accepts as genuine. Surely she should not have? As we saw above, and as she and her husband had both realised, the abduction of the baby had been a chance affair, quite unplanned.

Confusion is setting in, she herself is frantic with worry about her baby and no longer thinking clearly.

It is a gripping story and (as always with Peter Tremayne) it is well written and has within its pages awaiting the reader a plethora of fascinating early medieval characters, mostly but not all Irish. This time the cast includes a Nestorian (heterodox Eastern Christian) priest from Persia who has reached the extreme west on his travels of exploration and must now, soon, head back towards the east. He becomes involved with the Saxon Eadulf in the search for the baby, during which both very nearly lose their lives in a dramatic scene with an evil lord, quicksand, and an incoming tide. There is also an elderly judge the Chief Brehon himself who is 'losing it', indeed has already lost it, and rewards Eadulf for his efforts by having him thrown in gaol and charged with murder!

However, as I have when dealing with several other books recently, I must draw attention to some careless writing/editing. For instance, the word "our" in "our son" is not a "pronoun" as is claimed in the text. Elsewhere, and much more importantly, Fidelma remarks that "wolves do not attack one another. Only man attacks his own kind without cause." She, living in a clearing in the primeval forest, would certainly know better than that - though modern authors and editors might not. Similarly, the Iranian Basil Nestorius finds Ireland a great deal colder than his native land. In fact much of Iran is mountainous and snow-covered and icy cold all through the winter, unlike warm, temperate Ireland. Any competent editor would have spotted the first of these three examples, but no one can expect editors to be omniscient when it comes to zoology, geography etc. Here the responsibility lies fairly and squarely with the author: indeed, no competent and conscientious author would welcome an editor questioning his knowledge of the facts underlying or referred to in his narrative. They may let their imaginations run away with them when it comes to the facts of history (which are often far from being facts) (Tremayne's depiction of 6th-8th century Ireland is totally different from that of other writers such as Juliet Marillier - Daughter of the Forest - or Kate Horsley - Confessions of a Pagan Nun) but when dealing with an exact science such as geography or zoology they should automatically check the facts for themselves as part of the writing process unless they are clearly creating a fantasy world or setting their story in an alternative universe.