This Author has a knack of bringing the the prejudices, religious and social intolerances to life
in this turbulent time of 1744 .

Coroner Titus Cragg moves his wife and baby to a remote village in Lancashire in the hopes of avoiding an epidemic .....but the village is far from peaceful ...... he is soon asked to look into the death of a woman killed
by a prank !
When more details of the murky past of the villagers come to light and more inexplicable murders and disappearances occur - Titus finds his investigations become more perilous .
With a Community that refuses to abide by the Laws of the time can he along with his friend Dr Luke Fidelis
finally solve the mysteries .

A book that draws you in with characters that both complex and real this an entertaining Historical
Murder Mystery from a great Author

Another entry in the Cragg & Fidelis historical mystery series by Robin Blake. While I found this one slow starting for me I did find it an enjoyable read and would recommend for any mystery lover

It’s 1744 and on the recommendation of his associate Dr. Luke Fidelis, coroner Titus Cragg moves his wife and baby to a remote village in Lancashire in the hopes of avoiding an epidemic. But the village is far from peaceful and welcoming. Cragg is asked to investigate the death of a woman, who was the victim of an old village prank turned deadly. Soon, the prejudices, religious and social intolerances, old rivalries, and the murky past of the villagers come to light and more inexplicable murders and disappearances occur.

Rough Music, a Cragg & Fidelis mystery offers sharp insight into remote rural life of eighteenth-century England, where religious prejudices abound, a woman and man’s place are well defined and held accountable, and no one knows who is a friend and who is a foe. Punishments that humiliate and denigrate are carried out by the villagers and fly in the face of Cragg and Fidelis, who try to introduce law and punishment to a community that refuses it.

Rough Music kept my interest from the beginning. Even though the conclusion was not what I expected, I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a mystery that adds layers as you read and keeps you guessing to the very end.
Reviewed for Historical Novels Society

Intriguing Georgian mystery!

Titus Gragg determines that he and his family will flee the miasma of a sweltering 1744 summer and the threat of disease by taking a house in a small village in East Lancashire.
What he walks into is a murder inquiry. A shrewish wife has recently died from the practice of stanging. And with that the idiosyncrasies and customs of a remote rural hamlet left to its own devices soon becomes apparent.
The opening is a damning comment on the spread of gossip and of speculation growing into disturbing action. I was immediately struck by it.
"At the beginning there were just three conspirators, but like a wine spill on a tablecloth the disturbance spread and soon most of the village had caught the stain."
A brilliant introduction!
All in all, an unusual story that has a distinctive writing style which continued to lure me in. I found myself becoming more readily involved with the inner views of Titus as tension intriguingly grows under his careful insights. As the death of the woman is focused on, other players are introduced.
What I also came to realize was the particularly painstaking methodology of Titus, his sense of responsibility to his calling, and to his fellow citizens. Into this cameo of medieval like village life, comes Titus's doctor friend Luke Fidelis, who immediately sets about helping out with his friend the coroner's inquest.
Along the way we meet several interesting village members. There's the two major land holders in the area who are at odds over a bee swarm amongst other matters. (The analogies of the bees as a metaphor for human interactions is a fascinating inclusion throughout the story).
The violin player Blind Billy whose capering and music hijinks appears to egg on the mob mentality that infuses the villagers when they are in the throes of high running emotions (and alcohol). That all this is fueled by gossip, prejudice and speculation is disturbing.
An ex-soldier, Harry Hawk, returned from the French Wars with terrible facial scaring becomes the scapegoat. Is he innocent or guilty?
It is truly ironic that Titus' initial decision to take his family to safety actually exposed them to a different set of dangers in this closed, suspicious community.
This was a very peculiar and mesmerizing tale that has marvelous Chaucerian elements and a satisfying resolution.

A NetGalley ARC

Once I got into this book a little ways, I found that I was quite enjoying it. I wasn't thriled with the beginning of it though, feel awful for some of the characters and how they were depicted as being treated. Still now that I am finished, I am highly impressed with this author and his ability to keep the reader in suspense with his unusual plot lines and quirky writing.

Sometimes it is hard to see how the author will possibly connect two or more seemingly unrelated things, but he manages it with style and keeps the book alluring for those of us who enjoy solving mysteries. There was a decent amount of wry humour in this book and it made me smile and outright laugh on more than one occassion.

I would definitely recommend this book to those who enjoy mysteries and those who like authors that think outside the box.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I'm happy I got this ARC because it's an entertaining and enjoyable historical mystery and I discovered a new interesting series.
I loved the style of writing, the fleshed out characters, and the rich details of the well researched historical background.
I look forward to reading other books in this series.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book, all opinions are mine.

“Rough Music” is the latest Craig and Fidelis mystery, of which this is the fifth. This one’s set in 1744.

What does a locket from a London founding hospital, a missing husband, a missing wife, and a bull called Old Nob have in common? You’ll have to read "Rough Music" to find out. All will be revealed, at the end.

The book begins with a horrible mob frenzy in which an ancient custom is invoked to put a wife “in her place.” That ends with the wife’s death. And that’s just the prologue.

Titus Craig, lawyer and coroner, determines to leave his home in Preston because there a danger of illness to his six-month-old son. The furthest away from contagion the better, so the Craigs take a house away from the path of the disease, in a village named Accrington. Bad choice, but they don’t know this yet.

Their new landlord is a strange fellow, a bee-keeper who dotes on his bees. Other residents of the town are not as friendly. Mr. Turvey relates what happened to Anne Gargrave just two days before. He asks Titus to act as the coroner in this case, because Anne Gargrave has died from her ill treatment.

Titus begins immediately to question the motives of the ringleaders. Were they put up to it, this “willful cruelty,” as Titus calls it? The villagers close ranks. Very unpleasant people all around, and readers will have little sympathy for anyone.

The hen-pecked husband and his wife were made to suffer -- but what was the true motive? Here Doctor Luke Fidelis (the other half of the series protagonists) shows up on the Craig doorstep, so he gets to examine the corpse of the unfortunate Mrs. Gargrave. Accrington is a small, dilapidated village, and the inhabitants ain’t friendly. Well, they’ve done something wrong, haven’t they? No one liked her, so she is not missed. They want to call it an unfortunate accident. And unfortunately, the jury agrees, so there will be no justice for Mr. Gargrave there.

“To find the cause is not always to find the truth” -- so says Coroner Craig. The cause is everything, it would appear. There is something else in the works here, and the author is adept at revealing and concealing, not allowing the characters to be super-human, but having doubt and uncertainty. Readers will also get an expanse of description of the countryside, and the flora and fauna therein. It’s quite the travelogue, descriptive and adding a personal touch to the fictional narrative. The problem is that it tends to bog things down, and this book does start to slow down through the middle, with tangents and sub-plots taking precedence over what happened at the beginning of the book. One know all this is going to be tied together, but it takes rather a long time to get there. Finally, after much tooing and froing, there’s an end to everything. Perhaps not the one that the reader was looking for, but an end nevertheless.

And back the Craigs go to Preston, which will seem tame after their stay in Accrington. And glad they will be of it. Readers should be happy, too.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of the book in advance of publication, in exchange for this review.

Coming into a series not previously read can be difficult, but that is not the case here. Like Anne Perry's mysteries, this one stands alone while featuring characters that have appeared in previous novels. The writing and plot here are what you'd expect for a story set in this time period - it's rough and sometimes shocking. I admit that the prologue, which featured a husband and wife being publicly humiliated on a "stang ride," was graphic enough that I put the book away for a few days and debated whether to finish. However, I did go back and finish and found an interesting and clever plot and very appealing main characters. I enjoyed Titus Cragg very much, and would recommend this for libraries in which Blake's previous Cragg stories have been popular.

Thank you to NetGalley and Severn House Publishing for an e-Galley of this novel.

Robin Blake is a new author for me and this book took a little while to fully engage my interest but I ended up enjoying it. This story takes place in June 1744 and Titus and Elizabeth Cragg go a little off the rails when they hear there might be a chance of a paralyzing fever spreading from a nearby village. Nothing would do but they must leave Preston and go to a smaller more isolated village about twenty miles away to keep baby Hector safe from contagion. So off they go to quiet, sleepy Accrington which doesn't stay that way long once the coroner and his family are installed in the Dower House.

The structure of this plot was interesting because new elements kept being introduced into the story throughout most of the book. Observing the methods Titus Cragg used in investigating deaths in his position of coroner of the county was informative concerning the laws and processes of investigating deaths during this time period. Providing Titus with a medical man, Luke Fidelis, as his friend provided the necessary information regarding cause of death and any factors relevant to the physical wellbeing of a victim prior to their death. The two men are very close friends but different in their temperament so they balance each other in the story.

This is the fifth novel in the Cragg and Fidelis series and I am interested in finding the first book to see how this pairing of men came together so they could investigate crimes together. Even though this is not the first book in the series I had no problem feeling completely at ease with the relationships of the characters to one another.

Rough Magic is the newest book in the Cragg & Fidelis historical mystery series by Robin Blake. Due out 1st April 2019 from Severn House, it's 304 pages and will be available in first release in hardback format (presumably also ebook format soon after).

Historical mystery is probably my favorite genre, and this one, set in 1744, is a fine example. Coroner Cragg and his wife lease a house in a remote village to avoid an outbreak of polio (called 'paralysing fever') which threatens their infant son. The trip is anything but a peaceful retreat. Immediately after their arrival, Cragg is called on in his official duty to investigate the accident/murder of an unpopular harridan.

The custom of charivari (or rough music) was a form of public shaming which was on the way out in most areas of England in the time period, but this particular 'ride' ended with the woman's death. Dr. Fidelis is soon involved as well and his overdeveloped sense of chivalry gets a workout as there are damsels aplenty.

There is so much richness in the period detail in these books. I also appreciated the author's deft touch. The reader isn't clubbed over the head with historical accuracy, it's inserted into the narrative seamlessly.

These are well written, well plotted books. While some of the major plot points (no spoilers) are telegraphed fairly clearly, there were enough other twists to keep the narrative interesting and engaging.

Really well written and plotted. The other books certainly enhance this one, but it works well as a standalone.

Four stars. Highly recommended. Would make a fine mystery book club selection.

Robin Blake introduced us to Preston coroner Titus Cragg and his physician friend Luke Fidelis in A Dark Anatomy back in 2015, and the pair of eighteenth century sleuths are back again with their fifth case, Rough Music.
The title refers to an intriguing custom in English folklore, where people in a community would take to the streets in protest at someone – usually a man or his wife – who had offended them. The unfortunates or – if they were lucky – an effigy of them, would be paraded through the streets to the accompaniment of a cacophony of noise. Francis Grose described it in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in 1796:
“Saucepans, frying-pans, poker and tongs, marrow-bones and cleavers, bulls horns, etc. beaten upon and sounded in ludicrous processions”.

Devotees of Thomas Hardy will remember one such procession in The Mayor of Casterbridge, where it was known as The Skimmington Ride. Another name for the custom was Charivari. Older readers will recall that the late lamented Punch magazine was subtitled A London Charivari. In Georgian Lancashire, however, the display was known as a Stang Ride, and Rough Music opens with an unfortunate shrewish woman in what was then the tiny village of Accrington, being set upon by a mob who resent the fact that she brow-beats her placid husband. The episode gets out of hand, however, and when Anne Gargrave is finally brought back into her cottage, she is dead.
Titus Cragg with his wife and child have retreated from Preston to escape the ravages of a viral illness which has claimed the lives of many infants. They have fetched up in a rented house in Accrington, then little more than a scattering of houses beside a stream. Cragg is drawn into the investigation of how it was that Anne Gargrave died at the hands of her fellow villagers, but his work is complicated by a feud between two rival squires, a mysterious former soldier who may have assumed someone else’s identity, and the difficulty created by Luke Fidelis becoming smitten by the beguiling – but apparently mistreated – wife of a choleric and impetuous local landowner.
Cragg and Fidelis solve the Gargrave case after a fashion, but their work is just beginning. A disappearance, another three deaths and a mysterious house of ill-repute in Manchester tax their deductive powers to the full, and we are provided with ingenious – but plausible – solutions. The historical background is enthralling, but Blake wears his profound scholarship lightly. Just when I thought the fun was over, the book ends with a chance meeting in a Manchester inn between Cragg and novelist whose most celebrated book was brought to the big screen in 1963, and confirmed stardom on a certain Mr Albert Finney.
I have to admit to a not-so-guilty-pleasure taken from reading historical crime fiction, and I can say with some certainty that one of the things Robin Blake does so well is the way he handles the dialogue. No-one can know for certain how people in the eighteenth century- or any other era before speech could be recorded – spoke to each other. Formal written or printed sources would be no more a true indication than a legal document would be today, so it is not a matter of scattering a few “thees” and “thous” around. For me, Robin Blake gets it spot on. I can’t say with authority that the way Titus Cragg talks is authentic, but it is convincing and it works beautifully.
Robin Blake takes us to a pre-industrial rural Lancashire where trout shoal in clear, sweet streams and bees forage on the pure moorland heather, but he doesn’t flinch from the dark side of the idyll; there is prejudice, brutal justice and heartbreak. Rough Music is entrancing, but also a damn fine detective story.