Lord Gilbert Talbot is required to provide five knights, twelve squires, and twenty archers and men at arms, and wishes his surgeon – Hugh de Singleton – to travel with the party, while Hugh’s wife Kate will oversee the castle. Among the party will be Sir Simon Trillowe, Hugh’s old nemesis and Kate’s former suitor, who had once set fire to Hugh’s house. After a brawl on the streets of Oxford Sir Simon had nearly lost an ear; Hugh had sewn it back on but it had healed crooked, and Simon blamed Hugh for the disfigurement. Finding himself in the same party, Hugh resolves not to turn his back on the knight – but it is Sir Simon who should not have turned his back.
The tale unfolds, with graphic medical procedures, droll medieval wit, misdirection, ambition, romantic distractions and a consistent underlying Christian compassion.
Master Hugh, meeting Hubert the coroner at the scene of the murder, listened carefully to the coroner's surmise that a wolf had caused the great wound. And yet, if so, why was there no blood?
The corpse of a poor scholar, who had tried to sell one of the missing books, is found in the river: but he had not simply drowned ...
Thomas atte Bridge, a man no one likes, is found hanging from a tree near Cowleys Corner. All assume he has taken his own life, but Master Hugh and Kate find evidence that this may not be so...
Master Hugh and his assistant become involved with a kidnapped maiden, a tyrannical abbot, and a suffering monk - who needs Master Hugh's surgical skills and in return provides clues which assist Hugh in solving the mystery of the tainted coin.
Hugh finds the corpse of a young abbey novice - To Hugh's sinking heart, the abbot has a commission for him ...
When Bampton’s coroner, Hubert Shillside, does not return from a trip to Oxford, Master Hugh de Singleton is called
Hugh de Singleton must uncover the perpetrator of a poisoning at Kennington Palace
An engrossing read in the successful Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton, Surgeon series.
Sir Hugh is in top form tracking down the wily killer of local clerics while eating his way through a feast of mediaeval dishes
One of Master John Wycliffe’s scholars is found dead after a thunderstorm. Was he struck by lightning, or was there something more sinister to his death?
Delve into the world of fourteenth-century England in this thrilling historical mystery, the fifteenth in the brilliant Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton
Delve into the world of fourteenth-century England in this thrilling historical mystery, the sixteenth in the brilliant Chronicles of Hugh de Singleton