Where Joliffe Plays Detective

A Play of Isaac by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My first book by this author, and I really liked it. Went back and forth on a score--4 or 5--because I bet I'll like others in the series even more, but why be cheap? It was a fun book, a pleasure to read, so let's give it all the points.

I've read more than a few mysteries set in medieval or renaissance times, and I find most of them are so dreary I can hardly get through them. I think that's intentional--the dreary part, not the "hardly get through them" part--but I don't like it. Maybe life was mostly dreary then, and this is, after all, a murder mystery, but it's not supposed to be a bad experience for the reader, IMO. It's supposed to be fun to read. And this one is.

Fun why, you ask. First, I generally liked the main characters, which include Joliffe and the others in the troupe. (I found the minor characters interesting and well drawn, too, FWIW.) They're not totally best buds, and so they bicker and annoy each other part of the time, but it's friendly enough, and they all look out for each other. They're pretty good people, too, or so it seems to me, with engaging backstories, though I didn't read the previous series where they showed up. In other words, I like to side with them and cheer for them. Second, the setting is well done, with the land, the town, the society, the economy, and pretty much all the details seemingly accurate. Anything out of place is beyond my knowledge. The story inhabits that setting in a way that I enjoy, kinda like when you have a really good diagram of a ship or something and you can say "Oh, that's how that fits together..." Scratches a brain itch. And third, it's a good mystery.

Joliffe and the troupe he's part of have a gig in Oxford for the Corpus Christi festival, and when they're kind toward a mentally challenged theater-loving young man, they get invited to his rich family's home (well, barn) to stay a few days and perform a little for the family and their get-togethers. A body is found outside the barn where they are camping, and though they aren't explicitly named as suspects, they know how precarious their position is, and Joliffe takes it upon himself to solve the mystery.

It's good stuff: good pacing, plenty of intrigue, no dry patches. Now that I know the characters, I'm eager to see more of their stories, as well as others by this author. Fingers crossed.

Recommended for those historical mystery readers like me who haven't already discovered these books.

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