Peter Beresford Ellis has written over 30 scholarly works on the ancient Celts ranging from Wales - A National Again: The Nationalist Struggle for Freedom (1968) through Macbeth: High King of Scotland 1040-57 (1980) to Eyewitness to Irish History (2002). Under his fiction pseudonym, Peter Tremayne, he wrote 26 fantasies prior to 1994, most based on Celtic myth and legend, and 18 Sister Fidelma mysteries since 1994. He brings the same mixture of wit and scholarship to his mysteries as to his non-fiction works. MASTER OF SOULS is the sixteenth novel featuring 7th century sleuth Sister Fidelma, the sister of the king of Muman (Munster) in southwestern Ireland, a dálaigh (advocate) of the Brehon law courts, and a religieuse in the Celtic Church. The date is January 668 A.D. The location is the abbey at Ard Fhearta (Ardfert) and Corco Duibhne (the Dingle peninsula). The mystery is murder most foul – or is there more? Sister Fidelma has been asked to investigate the murder of the abbess and disappearance of 6 young sisters of the abbey. Her brother the king has encouraged her to travel to Ard Fhearta as a gesture of reconciliation with the recently rebellious populace. Sister Fidelma and her husband Brother Eadulf reach the abbey just as another death, that of an elderly scholar, is discovered. As Fidelma’s investigation takes her and Eadulf across the peninsula, they begin to suspect that these murders are connected to each other and to the rumors of a trade ship that is lured to destruction on the rocks and the murderous, murky figure called “the Master of Souls.” Peter Tremayne paints a captivating picture of the times while being scrupulously fair to the mystery reader. Sister Fidelma is fond of saying: “Never try to make a deduction until you have sufficient knowledge.” So we see all of the clues as Fidelma uncovers them. And we are drawn in as Fedelma gathers the strands of the various mysteries into their surprising resolution.

David Chernow