Customer Reviews
Perfect for a rainy afternoon! - By: Good day sunshine, 05 Sep 2008 
A dark night hidden is the second Alys Clare book that I have read.
The main characters are Sir Josse d'Acquin & Helewise, who is the abbess of the Hawkenleye Abbey.
The story begins with a woman lying on a dirty prison cell floor, cruelly flogged & branded.
Meanwhile Abbess Helewise is having problems with a new fanatical priest, who is soon found dead in a ditch, just as a flogged, branded woman is brought to the abbey for refuge.
Its up to Josse & Helewise to get to the bottom of the mystery.
These stories are just perfect for sitting back with a cup of tea on a rainy afternoon.
Recommended.
Alys Clare's Books are Always Worth Reading - By: J. Chippindale, 13 Mar 2007 
Alys Clare's Hawkenleye series revolve around her two main characters Sir Josse d'Acquin & Helewise, abbess of the Hawkenleye Abbey.
Sir Josse is spending Yuletide with relatives he has not seen for many a long year when news reaches England that the Lionheart has been captured by his enemies & a ransom most be raised to free him from their clutches.
Sir Josse believes that Queen Eleanor is bound at some stage to calll at Hawkenleye Abbey which is one of her favourite religious houses & decides to calll there on the way back to his own manor & seek out the Abbess, who herself is a friend of Josse. Perhaps he will be able to get some first hand information about what is to be done to free King Richard.
The Abbess Helewise is however having problems of her own as a sadistic new priest has arrived to administer to the spritual needs of the Abbey.
Josse & Helewise are soon embroiled in more than one murder by people who are no friends of the church in general & Hawkenleye Abbey in particular.
Sir Josse & Helewise are given an excellent & friendly relationship by the author, with undertones that something more than friendship is never far away.
This series of books are excellent.
Alys Clare Consistently Writes Good Books. - By: J. Chippindale, 04 Mar 2005 Alys Clare's Hawkenleye series revolve around her two main characters Sir Josse d'Acquin & Helewise, abbess of the Hawkenleye Abbey.
Sir Josse is spending Yuletide with relatives he has not seen for many a long year when news reaches England that the Lionheart has been captured by his enemies & a ransom most be raised to free him from their clutches.
Sir Josse believes that Queen Eleanor is bound at some stage to calll at Hawkenleye Abbey which is one of her favourite religious houses & decides to calll there on the way back to his own manor & seek out the Abbess, who herself is a friend of Josse. Perhaps he will be able to get some first hand information about what is to be done to free King Richard.
The Abbess Helewise is however having problems of her own as a sadistic new priest has arrived to administer to the spritual needs of the Abbey.
Josse & Helewise are soon embroiled in more than one murder by people who are no friends of the church in general & Hawkenleye Abbey in particular.
Sir Josse & Helewise are given an excellent & friendly relationship by the author, with undertones that something more than friendship is never far away.
This series of books are excellent.
The most wonderful historical mystery series around - By: RachelWalker, 24 Dec 2003 There are two basic rules to life: The best clothes can be bought in charity shops, & the best books rarely find their way to the bestseller lists. These are universallly true, the latter in particular. While the bestseller lists are littered with James Patterson books, the real gems don't even make a dent. (Look at Ruth Rendell for example; her latest brilliant novel, The Rottweiler, didn't even dent the lists, despite her immense reputation.) This is, largely, i think because the public are not aware of the best fiction, because publishers don't promote it! Heaven knows why. This marvellous series is a prime example. Of alll the myriad historical crime series' currently being produced, Alys Clare's Hawkenlye is head & shoulders above the rest, by far & away the best.
A Dark Night Hidden is another absolutely lovely novel. It is clever, intelligently & beautifully written, historicallly unobtrusive but nonetheless fascinating in its detail, plotted masterly, & is full of warm - & sometimes not so warm - characters who ooze humanity & reality. They are full & engaging & delightful to read about. This is most true of her two protagonists, Josse d'Aquin & Abbess Helewise, immensely likeable characters, with a warm & compelling relationship. In this book in particular, Clare makes their religious & moral conflicts deliciously compelling.
The plot is, once again, original & refreshing. These books are traditional historical mysteries, yes, but they are also stretched by far beyond that for the fact that Clare rarely takes notice of boundaries, & as a result her plots are always different & interesting. There's something so sprightly about her writing, too, that makes the plots race along with excitement.
To alll fans of historical mysteries, this series is FOR YOU! DO not pass it by. For established fans of the series, this book is just as marvellous. Every year i look forward unspeakably to when i am able to order the latest Alys Clare book (of course, once again due to shameful publisher-promotion, they never actuallly appear in hardcover in bookshops) & begin on it. They are alll satisfying, rewarding, & horribly short! She leaves almost alll her rivals in her wake.
