A Taste for Killing

by Sarah Hawkswood Book 10 in the Bradecote & Catchpoll series.

First published 2022

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4.5(1,635)

January 1145. Godfrey Bowyer, Worcester’s most accomplished and least popular bow maker, dies in agony after a poisoned meal. His wife Blanche eats the same food but survives, apparently reducing the suspects to the small number of people with access to the household and workshop.

Bradecote and Catchpoll discover motives involving Godfrey’s cast-out brother, a bailiff’s pressured wife, servants and the troubled marriage itself. Walkelin is distracted by his own plans to marry, while Bradecote worries about Christina’s approaching confinement. The poison may have been administered by one person, but the investigators must determine whether another mind selected the victim and manipulated the hand that served it.