IN COLLABORATION WITH Mary Monica Pulver Kuhfeld (1943–), an established mystery writer, Gail Lynn Frazer (1946–2013) created the joint pseudonym Margaret Frazer to produce six medieval detective novels about a Benedictine nun, Dame Frevisse. After the writing partners amicably separated, Gail Frazer continued the adventures, which now number seventeen novels, on her own. The successful series has been nominated for two Edgar Awards, one for The Servant’s Tale (1993) and the other for The Prioress’s Tale (1997). Born in Kewanee, Illinois, Frazer worked as a librarian, secretary, gift shop manager, and assistant matron at an English girls’ school before beginning her writing career.
Sister Frevisse, a nun at St. Friedswide’s Abby and the granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer, made her first appearance in The Novice’s Tale (1992), which offered accurate historical insights into such far-ranging subjects as medieval medicine, the Hundred Years War, and the attitude of the English people toward Joan of Arc. The series has been lavishly praised for the careful attention the author has placed on research to ensure that the portrayals of large historical events, as well as the tiniest details of daily life, are authentically described. It should be noted that the author deliberately named the vehicle in the following story inaccurately. In medieval England it would have been called a chariot but Frazer was willing to sacrifice authenticity in favor of clarity for the modern reader.
“A Traveller’s Tale” was first published in The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes, edited by Mike Ashley (London, Robinson, 2000).