Murder at Broadstowe Manor

Late Summer, 1263

Sir Rogier FitzHerbert, a close supporter of Simon de Montfort, is found hanged in his locked bedchamber alongside the body of a young man at his estate outside the medieval city of Hereford.

The new coroner for the county rules the deaths a murder-suicide, but Stephen Attebrook, a struggling knight without means and deprived of his position of deputy coroner, comes to think that all is not as it appears.

What looks like a routine murder inquiry draws Stephen and his friends Gilbert Wistwode and Harry into the game of espionage and diplomacy, for Montfort had sent the dead lord on a mission to the Welsh, bearing a letter with Montfort's proposals for a secret alliance. Men would kill to get that letter, which went missing upon FitzHerbert's death. Stephen finds himself in pursuit of that letter, for it seems to hold the key to the mystery.

Stephen's troubles pile up by leaps and bounds for he must dodge deputies sent after him by Sheriff Percival FitzAllan, who accuses Stephen of murder himself, and he delves deeply into Hereford's underworld where death lurks in every alley and byway in his search for the truth.