The Devil’s Domain

by Paul Doherty Book 8 in the Brother Athelstan Mysteries series.

First published 1998

Amazon

4.5(3,034)

London, summer 1380. A French captain held at Hawkmere Manor—the gloomy house known as the Devil’s Domain—is murdered while in the custody of John of Gaunt. The manor contains prisoners captured during the fighting between England and France, making every death there potentially both a criminal case and a diplomatic problem.

Sir John Cranston and Brother Athelstan are summoned to investigate. The isolated household is filled with resentments created by war, imprisonment and divided loyalties, and the murder proves difficult to separate from secrets carried across the Channel. As Athelstan reconstructs the victim’s final hours, the case exposes the ways in which the Hundred Years’ War reaches into London through prisoners, spies and private acts of revenge.