Many thanks to NetGalley and Severn House for this Advanced Reader Copy and the opportunity to review “Hungry Death.” All opinions and comments are my own.

The title is from a John Keats poem, we learn that on page one. Cragg and Fidelis will find us a murderer, but perhaps not one hungry for death, in this, the eighth in the series featuring county coroner Titus Cragg and his friend, physician Luke Fidelis in 18th century England.

Coroner Cragg is summoned to a terrible scene; a whole family has been slaughtered. And the supposed murderer has hanged himself -- the family patriarch. Conveniently, Luke Fidelis comes along and together, they begin the investigation. Seems open and shut, but the man’s brother says he would not have done this to his family.

The family belonged to a regular unconventional religious sect (made up, luckily). You get quite a full description of what they believe in, much more than you probably ever wanted to know, actually. But all of this will factor large later, so, pay attention.

There are side stories, too, to whet your appetite; a long-buried body is accidentally discovered, which occupies a great part of the coroner’s time; a mischievous Frenchman, missing sisters, mysterious notes; there’s the need for “amassing evidence by slow and patient accumulation.” All of this takes a while to expound on, so don’t expect a quick read in “Hungry Death.”

Cragg is eventually threatened himself. Obviously, he is coming close to the truth. Conclusions are reached, and well, there’s evil in this tiny village. Can an accounting be brought for it?

I enjoyed “Hungry Death,” although the path to the end took a while. Cragg and Fidelis do make a good team, and their journeys are always cause for anticipation. Looking forward to their next collaboration.

Lancashire, November 1747, and County Coroner Titus Cragg has been called to Moss Side Farm, to the scene of the horrifying slaughter of the entire Kidd family, including four children.

It’s discovered that the family were members of a very strange cult - could this have had anything to do with their horrific deaths?

Running parallel to this is the discovery of a body beneath the hothouse at nearby Orford Hall, owned by wealthy landowner and magistrate John Blackburne. Titus’s friend and colleague Luke Fidelis is presently a guest of Blackburne, and therefore in a position to work alongside Titus in this particular investigation.

Titus’s powers of deduction are exceptional, given that this was a time before the invention of forensic science. During the course of the investigation, he comes across many secrets, scandals, superstitions and curses, until he finally solves both crimes, and I for one never guessed the outcome!

This was a really good historical mystery, it was well written with a good plotline and well developed characters. The book was dark, gory and suspenseful and I couldn't put it down and I didnt see the ending coming. I didn't realise that this was part of a series so I will definitely be looking for more from this author.

A Quagmire…
The eighth in the Cragg and Fidelis series of historical mysteries and coroner Titus Cragg opens a veritable can of worms following the discovery of a body. As secrets emerge, and scandals unfold, the investigation becomes a quagmire, culminating in a worthy courtroom scene. Grotesque and immersive in equal measure and with a pitch perfect sense of time and place. A worthy addition to the series.

This enjoyable historical murder mystery, my first by the author but certainly not the last kept me hooked from the opening chapter right through until the end. Gripping and at times gory, the descriptive writing really brought the sites and smells of the period to life.

I have become a huge fan of the Cragg and Fidelis books written by Preston-born Robin Blake. They are set in the 1740s in Lancashire, Titus Cragg is the county coroner, and his friend Luke Fidelis is an enterprising  and innovative young physician. Hungry Death is the eighth in this excellent series.

Cragg is instructed to ride out to a lonely moorland farmhouse, and what he finds surpasses any of the previous horrors his calling requires him to confront. He finds an entire family slaughtered, by whose hand he knows not, unless it was the husband of the house, himself hanging by a strap hooked over a beam. To add even more mystery to the grisly tableau, Cragg learns that the KIdd family were members of a bizarre dissenting cult which encourages its members into acts of brazen sexuality. Then, in a seemingly unconnected incident, the gardener at a nearby mansion, trying to improve the drainage under his hothouse, discovers another body. This corpse may have been in the ground for centuries, as it has been partly preserved by the peat in which it was buried. When Fidelis conducts an autopsy, however, he concludes that the body is that of a young woman, and was probably put in the ground within the last decade or so.

Bodies - dead ones - are central to Titus Cragg's world. A coroner, then and now,  must try to be led, hand in hand, by the dead until the circumstances of their demise is revealed. Sometimes, through his investigations and observations, Cragg (helped by the medical eye of Fidelis) can make the dead talk, but the peat-blackened young woman seems to have little to say. Painstaking and shrewd deduction leads Cragg to believe that she was a servant girl once employed at one of the large households in the area. But who? The girls came and went, changed their names through marriage, and the passing years have cast a shroud of fog over the matter.

Regarding the slaughter at the farmhouse, Cragg discovers that the answer lies in the peculiar - and vengeful - nature of the Eatanswillian sect. I believe Robin Blake has used a little historical license here, as the only mention of the word  online  that I could find is that of the election in the fictional town of Eatanswill (described so satirically in The Pickwick Papers). The resolution of the case hinges on a note pinned to the door of the farmhouse, apparently written in some kind of code. Cragg hopes that  deciphering the code will lead him to the perpetrator of the slaughter.


All is resolved, of course in the final pages, which are framed around the coroner's inquest into both cases, and Robin Blake gives us a courtroom drama worthy of anything in the distinguished career of Perry Mason or, more recently Micky Haller. This is a cracking piece of historical crime fiction from the first word to the last, but I have to say the opening chapter was one of the most horrific passages I have read for a long time. Hungry Death is published by Severn House and is available now.

In the 1700’s Titus Cragg is the County Coroner called to Warrington to the horrific deaths of a family. He follows clues to bring evidence to the local magistrate. We’re these murders part of witchcraft still believed to play a part in some local cults. Cragg is also given the peculiar mystery of a body found under the hot house of Magistrate Blackburne. Both these mysteries will find many twists and turns and the characters involved will connect with each other to an eye opening finish. This is a very well thought out mystery which also gives you the flavour of life for all involved in a Northern town of the time. The interest is kept well till the very end.
I was given an arc of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.