Plague Land cover art

Plague Land

Oswald de Lacy Book 1

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Plague Land

By: S D Sykes
Narrated by: Ewan Goddard
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About this listen

 Oswald de Lacy was never meant to be the Lord of Somerhill Manor. Despatched to a monastery at the age of seven, sent back at seventeen when his father and two older brothers are killed by thePlague, Oswald has no experience of running an estate.
He finds the years of pestilence and neglect have changed the old place dramatically, not to mention the attitude of the surviving peasants.
Yet some things never change. Oswald's mother remains the powerful matriarch of the family, and his sister Clemence simmers in the background, dangerous and unmarried.
Before he can do anything, Oswald is confronted by the shocking death of a young woman, Alison Starvecrow. The ambitious village priest claims that Alison was killed by a band of demonic dog-headed men. Oswald is certain this is nonsense, but proving it - by finding the real murderer - is quite a different matter.
Every step he takes seems to lead Oswald deeper into a dark maze of political intrigue, family secrets and violent strife.
And then the body of another girl is found.
SD Sykes brilliantly evokes the landscape and people of medieval Kent in this thrillingly suspenseful debut.

(P)2014 Hodder & Stoughton©2014 S D Sykes Crime Fiction Historical Mystery Fiction Crime Exciting Middle Ages

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Critic reviews

The medieval CJ Sansom (Jeffery Deaver)
Sykes's damp, depopulated, miasmic Middle Ages is well evoked, making this an impressive debut with at least one sequel on the way.
A novel full of suspense and intrigue that will have you gripped.
There's a nice, cliché-free sharpness to Sykes' writing . . . that suggests a medieval Raymond Chandler at work, and there are no phony celebrations of the peasantry or earth-mothers thrusting herbal concoctions down grateful throats. Plenty of action and interesting characters, without intervention of the libertarian modern conscience that so often wrecks the medieval historical novel.
PLAGUE LAND is a fascinating historical crime novel about a world turned upside down, inhabited by a rich cast of characters. A terrific debut and a wonderful start to a brand-new series. (Antonia Hodgson, author of THE DEVIL IN THE MARSHALSEA)
Sykes has really reset the bar for medieval mysteries . . . every clue brings with it unexpected twists and turns. When you think you know who the killer is, you're slapped with yet another surprise.
Sykes's debut provides everything a reader would want in a historical mystery: a gripping plot, vivid language, living and breathing characters, and an immersive depiction of the past.
All stars
Most relevant
I really enjoyed this book good listen narration was just right.

Good to set a story in the aftermath of the plague...

Good listen....waiting for the next book......

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What did you like best about Plague Land? What did you like least?

I liked the twists and turns, but the tone of the narrator, while good as a young man coming of age, was still a tad whiny. But I stuck with it and enjoyed it.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Ewan Goddard?

Someone with a less whiny tone. Sorry.

Did Plague Land inspire you to do anything?

Nope

It was not bad

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There were some good ideas in this book but I think it needed to be tighter. There's also a bit too much adolescent angst and discovery in this book for my tastes. It's an enjoyable story but nothing special. I think you need to have read the first book to understand what's going on.

Enjoyable but nothing special

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I thought this book was aimed at the young adult market. I found it rather unsophisticated, however I may have been influenced by the narrator, who sounds about 16 and I suppose that's appropriate because the protagonist is a somewhat innocent teenager who had spent most of his life in training at a monastery which explains his naivety but not his free-thinking attitude. When his father and two older brothers die from the Black Death he is sent back with his friend, a priest, to take over management of the family estate where his mean-spirited sister and spiteful mother live.

The characters are reasonably well drawn, but I did not feel I was dropped into Medieval England as I had hoped. I had trouble with the transparently stupid self-confessed errors the main character makes because he fails utterly to understand the social environment he lives in and this struck a major discord. The disparity whereby our young protagonist has very modern beliefs and expectations would not happen in an unsophisticated world where the Church holds a superstitious and fearful populace in a tight grip.

Having said all that, the story itself is adequately convoluted with an excellent twist at the end which I didn't see coming and so the book ends well but its a shame that what went before held little veracity.

I have to compliment the narrator's different accents and voices, I can't even imagine a Cornish-French mix but he managed it very convincingly, not to mention female and older voices.

I won't be listening to this story again, I won't be looking for another book by S D Sykes, and I would think twice about listening to an adult book narrated by Ewan Goddard.

An innocent returns.

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