The Tarnished Chalice cover art

The Tarnished Chalice

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Tarnished Chalice

By: Susanna Gregory
Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £19.99

Buy Now for £19.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

 On a bitter winter evening in 1356, Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael arrive in Lincoln - Michael to accept an honour from the cathedral, and Bartholomew to look for the woman he wants to marry. It is not long before they learn that the friary in which they are staying is not the safe haven they imagine - one guest has already been murdered.

It soon emerges that the dead man was holding the Hugh Chalice, a Lincoln relic with a curiously bloody history. Bartholomew and Michael are soon drawn into a web of murder, lies and suspicion in a city where neither knows who can be trusted...

©2006 Susanna Gregory (P)2007 W F Howes Ltd Crime Fiction Historical Mystery Abraham Lincoln Fiction Crime Middle Ages

Listeners also enjoyed...

 A Plague on Both Your Houses cover art
A Conspiracy of Violence cover art
The Chelsea Strangler cover art
The Executioner of St Paul's cover art
Cathedral of Bones cover art
The Wolves of Savernake cover art
The Unquiet Bones cover art
A Time for Swords cover art
Ironfoot cover art
Wine of Violence cover art
Blood on the Crown cover art
The King's Justice cover art
The Tinner's Corpse cover art
The Bookseller's Tale cover art
The Ashes of London cover art
A Mortal Bane cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
i enjoyed this story in the main but missed the familiar settings of Cambridge, however it was good to stretch our legs and take in new surroundings.
i found it hard to hold on to all the various characters losing track of who was who initially.
The storyline didn't seem quite so strong and the excess of deaths seemed to literally clutter the scene. I found the eventual twists and turns at the end a little unlikely, but I had sort of guessed where we might be heading, despite the odd fiery red herring!!
An enjoyable untaxing murde mystery none the less.

Cambridge heads to Lincoln

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The body count, the ridiculous conclusion, and the wooden performance.

Has The Tarnished Chalice put you off other books in this genre?

Only ones written by the same author.

What didn’t you like about Andrew Wincott’s performance?

Wooden in the extreme! Sententious, slow, over-emphasised in way too many places.

Did The Tarnished Chalice inspire you to do anything?

Only to never listen to anything by the same author or the same reader again!

Any additional comments?

This was the first book I have listened to from Audible that was thoroughly disappointing in almost every aspect. The situation was the only redeeming feature, along with the characters of Matt and to a certain extent Michael. I have wasted a lot of hours hoping that the wooden performance would prove worth struggling through, and gave up on it half an hour before the end when the most ridiculously unlikely person proved to be behind the inordinately unlikely body count.

Very disappointing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I LOVE this series of books, but to have two in the middle read by a different narrator and with different voice characterisation rather spoils the storyline. The story however is as intricate and fascinating as always.

Different !

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A convincing and atmospheric description of medieval Lincoln, with two engaging main characters, however the plot was far too complicated to take in in audio book form. it felt like there were over forty characters, lots of sub plots and a dual timeline in which it kept referring back to events in Cambridge years before. I stuck with it and listened to the end, and the resolution was satisfying enough, but the sheer amount of plot stilted the enjoyment.

intriguing but over-complicated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Andrew Wincott does a reasonable job, but he is not David Thorpe.

it would be wonderful if this, and previous book in the series, could be re-recorded by David Thorpe.

The characters of the characters have been changed which make it difficult to follow.

I would certainly purchase.

The Tarnished Chalice

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I enjoyed this for the most part, BUT... I found it was tedious and dragged, even the narration, though good, was quite soporific. I found that I had to keep rewinding to catch up as my mind had just wandered off.

Nevertheless, it was a good story, and I did enjoy it, I struggled a bit to keep up with all the different players though!

Quite good, not her best!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Despite pronouncing Cynric’s name properly in the previous audiobook Wincott now seems to have forgotten how to say it.
His attempt at a Welsh accent is appalling too...
And if he says “grih-MACE” instead of “grih-MISS” one more time I am going to scream.
I can’t wait for David Thorpe to come back in the next instalment.
A great book spoiled by a mediocre narrator.

I cannot

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have enjoyed all the Matthew Batholoman books, though I do miss the original narrator

Excellent book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
to be honest I would not have listened to this all the way through, except for the fact that I didn't want to miss anything in the ongoing story outside this case. I complained in the past about the previous narrator being too slow, but, I apologize because I want him back. I did not like this narrator and I think it was because of him I have not enjoyed this and the previous book.

bit slow

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A big hooray for Andrew Wincott as performer/narrator. This is the second performance of his of a Matthew Bartholomew chronicle and I have been mightily impressed by his control of the narrative and, more especially, his wide range of consistent character voices. As to this 12th chronicle, it proves as plot convoluted as is usually the case. Here the ‘chalice chasing’ a plenty. Sometimes it just helps to be simpler. We get to know more about the character of other Cambridge personnel but this proves less involving than the far better written 11th chronicle. The 13th chronicle is already waiting in my library.

Here a Chalice...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews