The Merchant of Death

A hated tax collector dies in a classic locked-room mystery and a straying wife and her two lovers are murdered in the latest puzzles probed by medieval physician Kathryn Swinbrooke and King's Commissioner Colum Murtagh, both encountered most recently in The Eye of God. Few grieve when royal tax collector Sir Reginald Erpingham is found dead in his room at Canterbury's Wicker Man inn, but the loss of the funds he has gathered will certainly upset King Edward IV, recently come to the throne after ruinous turmoil in the War of the Roses. Asked to investigate the death, which she determines was by poison, Kathryn must set aside her concern for talented painter Richard Blunt, admitted killer of his young second wife and her two lovers. Another death, and the collaboration between Kathryn and Colum, finally brings truth to the fore. Grace breathes vivid life into this atmospheric tale of turbulent life and death in 15th-century England. (June)