1. Veil of Lies
Crispin Guest has fallen from knighthood to the margins of London after a conviction for treason, supporting himself as the Tracker: an investigator who finds missing property and uncovers other people’s secrets. Wealthy merchant Nicholas Walcote hires him to discover whether his young wife Philippa is…
2. Serpent in the Thorns
A frightened scullery maid brings Crispin Guest to a corpse hidden in her room, and the Tracker soon learns that the dead man was a courier carrying an object important enough to threaten relations between kingdoms. The case becomes more dangerous when Miles Aleyn, the man…
3. The Demon’s Parchment
Jewish physician Jacob of Provencal secretly asks Crispin Guest to recover stolen parchments connected with a succession of brutal murders of boys in London. The request is dangerous in itself: Jews had been expelled from England in 1290, so Jacob’s presence at court must remain discreet.…
4. Troubled Bones
Crispin Guest leaves London for Canterbury after the archbishop asks him to discover who is threatening sacred relics associated with the cathedral. The assignment brings an uncomfortable reunion with Geoffrey Chaucer and a group of pilgrims whose stories, rivalries and secrets echo the world later immortalised…
5. Blood Lance
When Crispin Guest sees a body plunge from London Bridge into the Thames, he doubts the official conclusion of suicide. The dead man is an armourer, and an old knightly acquaintance is desperate to find an object the armourer was said to possess: the Spear of…
6. Shadow of the Alchemist
French scrivener Nicolas Flamel asks Crispin Guest to find his missing wife Perenelle and an apprentice who has also disappeared. The enquiry turns lethal when the apprentice is murdered and a ransom demand claims Perenelle will die unless Flamel surrenders the Philosopher’s Stone. As coded symbols…
7. Cup of Blood
A corpse in Crispin Guest’s favourite tavern proves to be connected with a Templar knight and a missing sacred object, even though the order of the Temple had been suppressed decades earlier. Before Crispin can establish what the dead man was protecting, he is abducted by…
8. The Silence of Stones
London, 1388. The Stone of Destiny vanishes from the English coronation throne during Mass at Westminster Abbey, and its disappearance immediately becomes political. Richard II fears that the loss will encourage rebellious magnates and undermine royal authority at an already dangerous moment. He orders Crispin Guest…
9. A Maiden Weeping
Crispin Guest wakes after a drunken night beside a murdered woman and cannot remember enough to prove that he did not kill her. When other young women die in similar circumstances, the danger expands beyond his own possible guilt. A relic known as the Tears of…
10. Season of Blood
In 1390 two monks are murdered at Hailes Abbey and its celebrated relic of the Holy Blood is stolen. Crispin Guest becomes involved in returning the relic while trying to protect a former enemy from a murder charge. The enquiry draws him into the affairs of…
11. The Deepest Grave
London, 1392. Disturbed graves and rumours of walking corpses terrify the parish around St Modwen’s Church, prompting Father Bulthius to ask Crispin Guest for help. At the same time Philippa Walcote, Crispin’s former lover, sends an urgent appeal: her seven-year-old son Christopher has been accused of…
12. Traitor’s Codex
London, 1394. A stranger leaves Crispin Guest an ancient leather-bound codex written in a language he cannot recognise and tells him that he will know what to do. A hidden rabbi identifies the book as a version of the Gospel of Judas, a text whose claims…
13. Sword of Shadows
London, 1396. Cornish treasure hunter Carantok Teague approaches Crispin Guest with a map that supposedly leads to Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur. Crispin and Jack travel with him to Cornwall and Tintagel, where the quest reunites Crispin with a woman from his past. What begins…
14. Spiteful Bones
Young lawyer Nigellus Cobmartin is restoring an inherited manor for himself and his companion John Rykener when workmen uncover a skeleton bound inside a wall. The bones are accompanied by a valuable relic that disappeared from the Cobmartin estate almost twenty years earlier, suggesting that an…
15. The Deadliest Sin
London, 1399. Crispin Guest is summoned to St Frideswide’s Priory after two nuns are murdered in ways that appear to invoke the Seven Deadly Sins. While he and Jack investigate tensions inside the religious house, England itself moves towards regime change. The exiled Henry Bolingbroke lands…