A night of the dark moon, the bright stars concealed behind dense, low cloud heavy with chill moisture. A night of shrieking wind, blowing out of the north east, its steady howl bringing with it a phantom hint of snow-laden steppes, unimaginably distant. Unimaginably lonely. The inn at Tonbridge had been busy since early morning. It was market day and obvious since first light that it was going to be a poor one. In such terrible weather, merchants and stallholders had been more than ready to forego the possibility of further dealing - increasingly unlikely as folk headed home for the comfort of their own hearths - and, turning their backs on the early-falling darkness, make their way to Goody Anne's tap room. It was getting late now. The taproom was empty of customers, and the boy and the serving maid had finished their chores. On the floor of the guest chamber, where he had half-fallen from the narrow cot, lay a dying man. He had come to rest on his side, the left cheek pressed hard against the thin rags that partially covered the floor. In and around his mouth were quantities of brownish-yellow vomit, in which chunks of partially-digested meat and vegetables stood up like islets in a stream. He had been violently sick soon after staggering away to the privacy of this room, driven to seek solitude by the rapidly increasing feelings of unease that had been overcoming him... burning and tingling in the mouth, and a strange sense that every object in his sight had suddenly taken on a fuzzed outline. He lapsed into unconsciousness. The slow breathing became more laboured as paralysis increased its grip on the respiratory muscles. As the relentless fist crept inexorably towards the heart, its beat weakened. Within the half hour, the man was dead.

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“Part of the freshness of this novel lies in the deft portrayal of life in late 12th-century England. Clare opens an unglazed window into the era without lapsing into the grotesque. I raise a frothy flagon to the debut of medieval sleuths Helewise and Josse and look forward to toasting their many future successes.” CrescentBlues.com

“The murders are smartly conceived and plotted; the Kentish countryside is vividly described; and Josse and Helewise are fresh and appealing detectives. It will be interesting to see if their mutual admiration for each other becomes something more in succeeding instalments.” Ilene Cooper, Booklist

Published 2000: Hodder & Stoughton (UK), St Martin's Press (US), Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag (Germany), Editorial Planeta S.A. (Spain).