Sleuthing monk Brother Athelstan discovers that past crimes can cause
new murder in the latest intriguing medieval mystery
June, 1381. The rebel armies are massed outside London, determined to
overturn both Crown and Church. The Regent, John of Gaunt, has headed
north, leaving his nephew, the boy-king Richard II, unprotected.
Brother Athelstan meanwhile has been summoned to the monastery at
Blackfriars, tasked with solving the murder of his fellow priest,
Brother Alberic, found stabbed to death in his locked chamber. Athelstan
would rather be protecting his parishioners at St Erconwald's. Instead,
he finds himself investigating a royal murder that took place fifty-four
years earlier whilst the rebel leaders plot the present king's
destruction.
What does the fate of the king's great-grandfather, Edward II, have to
do with the murder of Brother Alberic more than fifty years later? When
he finds his own life under threat, Athelstan discovers that exposing
past secrets can lead to present danger.