Four commissioners are investigating discrepancies and errors in the returns for the Domesday Book. When the miller who alleged fraud by the local abbey is found conveniently dead in the forest, allegedly killed by a wolf, the two lay commissioners investigate his death.

Promising start to a series with some good period details. ( )

Good start to a series about interesting times; as Britain transitions from the Saxon laws and culture to those of the Normans. The bluff and brusque soldier, Ralph Delehard, paired with the more urbane half Saxon lawyer, Gervaise Bret, make a good team to sort out what belongs to whom and unmask the beast in the forest. ( )

This story of Domesday Book, murder and intrigue is quite an interesting one.

Gervase Bret is a half-saxon lawyer and his companion Ralph Delchard are two Doomesday Commissioners, taking part in the survey. They find themselves in Bedwyn where there is intrigue and shortly after they arrive a death. It looks like wolves have killed a man but nothing is that simple.

It's an interesting story and I'd like to read more in the series. ( )

This book is the first in Marston's Domesday series. It is set in England 20 years after William the Conqueror became king (1086). Two of William's men (Gervaise Bret and Ralph Delchard) have been sent to Bedwyn to do a land assessment. While they are there there are gruesome murders occuring and they appear to have been committed by a renegade wolf. Bret and Delchard are trying to figure out what is going on while they are also pursuing some shady land deals. This series looks very promising. It is very well written with a tight plot, and has colourful settings with great period detail. It is deliciously medieval, and Bret and Delchard make a great crime-fighting duo. Can't wait for more. ( )

I came to this book having greatly enjoyed The Railway Detective, the first in another of Marston's historical mysteries. The Wolves of Savernake is also the first of a series, in this case one set amidst the Domesday survery in the late eleventh century. It is further evidence that Marston is highly skilled at producing page-turning good yarns with a firm grounding in historical background. I enjoyed this one somewhat less than the railway book, but that probably just reflects my own deeper interest in the Victorian period as opposed to the medieval. Each book in the Domesday seris centres on a different English county, so there is plenty of scope for it to be a very long series indeed, although Marston appears to have concentrated on other projects in recent years, even a series about a golf pro that he has written under another name. In the Savernake book, the tensions between the Anglo-Saxon English and the new Norman elite are particularly well-handled. ( )