Shrewsbury’s annual Saint Peter’s Fair brings merchants, travellers and money to the town in July 1139, but it also sharpens an old dispute between the abbey and the local burgesses over who should profit from the event. When a visiting merchant is murdered after a public quarrel, suspicion falls easily on men already involved in the dispute.
Brother Cadfael investigates among traders, townspeople and strangers moving through the fair. The victim’s niece, Emma, becomes central to a case in which commercial rivalry may conceal political motives connected with the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda. The crowded fair gives the killer opportunities that the quieter monastery normally would not provide, while Cadfael must distinguish a private murder from the larger tensions of a kingdom in which loyalties can change the meaning of apparently ordinary business.
Bernard Knight
31 books
Ian Morson
21 books
Sharon Kay Penman
14 books
Elizabeth Chadwick
26 books
Cecelia Holland
20 books