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  • A Wicked Deed

  • The Fifth Matthew Bartholomew Chronicle
  • By: Susanna Gregory
  • Narrated by: David Thorpe
  • Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (204 ratings)
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A Wicked Deed cover art

A Wicked Deed

By: Susanna Gregory
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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Summary

Matthew Bartholomew, doctor of medicine and fellow of Michaelhouse, Cambridge, is travelling with a party from the college to accept the gift of the living of a parish in Suffolk. One of his companions, Unwin, an unworldly scholar, is to be installed as priest. Their journey is not without incident - they are chased by footpads, pass through an eerie village abandoned after the recent plague and find a man barely alive on a gibbet - so they reach their destination with some relief.

But their thoughts of recovering while enjoying the local Pentecostal Fair are soon curtailed, as they are immediately thrust into the machinations of local boundary disputes between three landowners. Then all such squabbles seem mere trivial when Unwin is murdered in the very church which was to have been his home. While trying to investigate a possible motive for his killing, Bartholomew discovers that this is not the first unnatural death in the village - deaths which everyone has put down to the curse of the plague dead village. He is of too practical a mind to believe the superstitions, but is he wily enough to work out the real motive behind the murders and who will gain from them?

©1999 Susanna Gregory (P)2017 Little Brown Group

What listeners say about A Wicked Deed

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

a thrilling and complex read

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed many of the Bartholomew books, and to date I think that this is one of the best. A story of murder, alchemy, superstition, folk tales and an abandoned village. I listened as often as possible and was really sorry when it finished.
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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable enough to listen to over and over

Theres' our favourite narrater. All our favourite characters and some fabulously varied new characters.
Unbearable tension and gripping episodes.Humour. Laugh out loud moments of 14th century living. Attention grabbing criminal pathology. A trip out of cambridge into the countriside. Scheming , plot twists and an ending that is a masterful surprise.
This has all the elements of Susanna Gregory's best books

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fabulous

The Matthew Bartholomew chronicles just keep getting better and better as they go on. I love the stories, the setting, the flavour of the period and mixture of grim crime and humour and the regualr characters who keep popping up in our 14th Century cross between Morse and Misommer murders. Most of all I love the friendship bewteen Matthew and Brother Michael, two dencent men doing the best they can as they muddle through their sleuthing, with Michael's greedy yet brave and intelligent cleric and Matthew's endearingly naive big heart and quest for truth mingling seemlessly together in the twists and turns of a plot that keeps you guessing. All of this is bound together magnificently by David Thorpe's reading. He really brings it all to life with his wonderful selection of voices which give each character a real personality that, as the books go on, makes one feel they are people we really know and love and that we really are secret listeners in a wonderful world of mystery.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

slendid listen

love this series and the historic note at the end. looking forward to hearing next-door.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A great read!

A well read book
Keeping with the same reader keeps up the familiarity with the central characters

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another enjoyable listen

I am really enjoying these and find the story and delivery to be to my taste.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Love this series

Complex plot - outside Cambridge this time but plenty of local references. Wonderfully read as always.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

So funny

I’ve listened to loads of these Bartholomew stories and this one is specially good. The humour is wonderfully dry and downright funny. Thankyou.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Plot: convoluted, turgid, and ridiculous. Narration: as great as ever

I’ve listened to the previous audiobooks in the series, and the narration is as lively and engaging as ever, and is the only reason I saw this through to the end. Matthew is supposed to be intelligent, but makes cringe-worthy decisions and blunders that are out of character with his previous record, and he seems to be losing brain cells with each passing book! The plot was boring and over-wrought, the use of ‘sepulchral’ and ‘silent as the grave’ is laughably frequent, and there were some parts of the story (the turgid debate section) which should have been edited better and which I listened to on x2 speed just to get through it. Performance was wonderful though, as always.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

strange happenings.

I found this book had a fault and part repeated itself very strange?? .

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