Morality Play — Barry Unsworth

Short-listed for the Booker Prize, Morality Play is a medieval murder mystery full of the wonders of the time -- and lessons for our own time -- by a master storyteller.

It is a cold winter in the fourteenth century, and a young renegade priest, Nicholas Barber, joins an acting troupe who prepare to play the drama of their lives. Breaking the tradition of only performing religious plays, the group's charismatic leader, Martin, wants them to enact the brutal murder that has torn apart the rural village into which they have wandered. A young boy has been found dead and a mute-and-deaf girl has been arrested and stands to be hung. As the troupe delve deeper into the circumstances of the murder, they find themselves entering a dark world of intrigue that may prove their undoing. Taut and suspenseful, Morality Play is an exquisite work that captivates by its power, while opening up the distant past as new to the reader.