Sister Fidelma

ABSOLUTION BY MURDER is the brilliant and evocative first novel in Peter Tremayne''s Sister Fidelma series, bringing 7th-century Ireland vividly to life. PRAISE FOR ABSOLUTION BY MURDER: ''In the simultaneously sharp-tongued and full womanly figure of Sister Fidelma, Tremayne has created a heroine whom many readers will willingly follow. Even Brother Cadfael might have tolerated her'' Kirkus Reviews As the leading churchmen and women gather at the Synod of Whitby in 664AD to debate the rival merits of the Celtic and Roman Churches, tempers begin to fray. Conspirators plot an assassination, while mysterious, violent death stalks the shadowy cloisters of the Abbey of St Hilda. When the Abbess Etain, a leading speaker for the Celtic Church, is found murdered suspicion inevitably rests on the Roman faction. Attending the Synod is Fidelma, of the community of St Brigid of Kildare. As an advocate of the Brehon Court, she is called on to