A Plague On Both Your Houses: The First Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

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Bartholemew's character is refreshing in that he is often villified for his "new" ideas regarding medicine and science, yet he is a valued member of Michaelhouse. He felt his knees turn to jelly when he saw the wheel and what was caught in it, and sank onto the grass, unable to tear his eyes away.

This is the first time I've read one of the books in this series and I can't wait to start the next one. Matthew Bartholomew is a physician and teacher at the University of Cambridge, which is suddenly having an epidemic of unexplained deaths that, he is told, relate to a power struggle with College of Oxford. As Camus warned, the plague ‘never dies or disappears for good … [it will] rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city’.Both series are written about the same time period but this series centers around Cambridge while Archer is in York.

At times the story was too convoluted and the "Let's summarize what we know" moments were annoying, but it was a good enough introduction to make me want to read more about the selfless physician, Matthew Bartholomew.Very simply, the curse, said by a character Mercutio as he was dying means: ‘I hope both your families get sick and suffer’.

And then the Black Death finally arrives and Bartholomew is dragged deeper and deeper into a quagmire which threatens not only his life, but the continued existence of the University and the future of the town. Matthew Bartholomew, unorthodox but effective physician to Michaelhouse college in medieval Cambridge, is as worried as anyone about the pestilence that is ravaging Europe and seems to be approaching England. Bartholomew could feel the student’s disapproval as he entered the single-roomed shacks that were home to families of a dozen.

The revelations on the identities of the bad guys were interesting, but the main motivation for all the bad doings was very unconvincing and weak. Too many people with last names that are Christian names (Bartholomew, Oliver), brothers with the same last name (Oliver, Stanmore), and characters whose first name begins with the same letter (Wilson, William; Alcote, Augustus, Aelfrith, Abigny).

Second, both the title and jacket description led me to believe the book would be more focused on the plague. They have frittered away our future with their inability to control their desire to spend other people’s money.

The plot is ridiculous and when the mystery is finally resolved at the end of the book, the author has to repeat what happened and why about 6 different times because it's so senseless. When three more scholars die in mysterious circumstances, Bartholomew defies the University and begins his own enquiry. A plague o’ both your houses” —William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, scene 1 “[W]hen into the distinguished city of Florence, more noble than any other Italian city, there came the deadly pestilence.