From Publishers Weekly
During the bitterly icy January of 1474, in the English river port of Bristol, Roger the Chapman falls desperately ill with the ague. In his third absorbing appearance, after The Plymouth Cloak , Roger is taken in and nursed by weaver's widow Margaret Walker and her fiesty daughter Lillis. While recuperating, he learns that a handsome young rakehell had been hanged for murdering Margaret's father, although several months later the alleged victim had wandered home, injured, ill and slightly amnesiac, and subsequently died. Many townspeople, doubting the older man's probity and suspecting his family of criminal activity, are harassing Margaret and Lillis. Roger, who has forsaken monastery life for the carefree existence of an intinerant peddler, believes God has placed him in Bristol to untangle the affair. The paths of his investigation lead him to Irish slavers who raid the English coast; the Lollards, whose "heretical" religious reform movement foreshadows Henry VIII's break with Rome; Welsh tin miners living in the dense forest; and wealthy Bristol burghers. An attempt on Roger's life comes before he resolves the mystery--and finds himself happily wed. Rich detail and a satisfyingly concluded plot make this series a continuing pleasure.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Certain elements of this 15th-century tale necessarily make it move more slowly than a modern mystery, especially when it comes to transportation. Series sleuth Roger Chapman, an itinerant peddler, literally "falls" ill in Bristol, where a widow and her 20-year-old daughter nurse him back to health. In return, Roger determines to solve the mystery of how the widow's father, supposedly murdered by a man who was hanged for the crime, reappears later with amnesia, and then dies. Chapman treks, eats, interviews, and, when he nears the truth, suffers assault. A fine re-creation.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
