A Cruel Courtship (43 page)

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Candace Robb

The second in the Margaret Kerr Mystery series

Edinburgh, 1297. Margaret Kerr, fiercely loyal to the deposed king John Balliol, has come in search of her absent husband Roger – a man in the service of Balliol’s enemy Robert the Bruce. But terrifying raids and a brutal murder bring the wrath of the English to Margaret’s door.

Roger’s sudden reappearance enables Margaret to escape from the city, but she soon suspects that his new-found concern is nothing more than a charade. And then her father returns from Bruges, bringing trouble and discord in his wake.

What was it the raiders sought from Margaret’s property? And what of her mother’s visions, which all sides are keen to interpret? Who can Margaret really trust in these troubled times?

‘Thirteenth-century Edinburgh comes off the page cold and
convincing, from the smoke and noise of the tavern kitchen to
Holyrood Abbey under a treacherous abbot. Most enjoyable’
The List

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Candace Robb

An Owen Archer Mystery

It is the year of our Lord 1363. And in the cathedral city of York people are dying in mysterious circumstances. But there seems to be a common thread – the herbal remedies dispensed by Nicholas Wilton, Master Apothecary. The first victim is an anonymous pilgrim. But when a highborn nobleman dies after taking the same potion the authorities decide to act.

Dispatched to York, in disguise, to unravel the mystery, Owen Archer, former Captain of Archers, apprentices himself to the Apothecary. But it is from Wilton’s beautiful wife Lucie that he must learn the arcane secrets of the trade. Slowly but surely Owen begins to uncover the truth. And when the deaths continue he realises to his horror he must count Lucie among the suspects.

‘Gripping and believable … you can almost smell the streets of
14th-century York as you delve deeper into an engrossing plot’
Prima

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Candace Robb

An Owen Archer Mystery

High summer in the year of our Lord 1365, and Owen Archer finds himself once again called upon by Archbishop Thoresby to exercise his skills as detective. While York celebrates the feast of Corpus Christi, a man is murdered in the shadow of the Mister, his right hand severed. All the evidence points to a wool merchant last seen quarrelling with the dead man.

But a complex web of rivalries surrounds the wool traders, and
Owen is unsure where to turn first. His only witness is a young boy, his only suspect a mysterious hooded woman – and neither can be found. With Thoresby preoccupied at Windsor with the King, Owen is under intense pressure to solve the case, but he soon finds himself ensnared in a plot devised by very powerful masters …

‘A mystery that is both compelling and tricky to unravel … a
considerable achievement’
Books Magazine

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Candace Robb

An Owen Archer Mystery

When a young nun dies of a fever in the town of Beverley in the summer of 1365, she is buried quickly for fear of the plague. But one year later a woman appears, talking of relic-trading and miracles. She claims to be the dead nun resurrected. Murder follows swiftly in her wake, and the worried Archbishop of York asks Owen Archer to investigate.

Travelling to Leeds and Scarborough to unearth clues, Owen finds only a trail of corpses, until a meeting with Geoffrey Chaucer, spy for King Edward, links the nun with mercenary soldiers and the powerful Percy family. Meanwhile, in York, the apothecary Lucie Wilton has won the mysterious woman’s confidence. But the troubled secrets which start to emerge will endanger them all …

‘Meticulously researched, authentic and gripping’
Yorkshire Evening Press

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Candace Robb

An Owen Archer Mystery

A snowy March, 1367, and King Edward is impatient. He wants William of Wykeham confirmed as Bishop of Winchester, but Pope Urban V is stalling, deterred by the man’s wealth and political ambition.

Thus Owen Archer finds himself heading a deputation from York to Fountains Abbey, to win support for Wykeham from the powerful Cistercian abbots. Ignoring advice, he places his old comrade Ned Townley in charge of the fellow company to Rievaulx, hoping to dispel rumours of Ned’s involvement in a mysterious death.

But just days out of York trouble erupts: a friar and Ned both vanish, following news of murder at Windsor. Owen asks John Thoresby, at Court in his role as Lord Chancellor, for help, little knowing it will involve him with the King’s mistress, Alice Perrers, ever a dangerous enemy …

‘A complex and ambiguous tale … Robb continues to adeptly
blend politics with period detail and three-dimensional
characterization’
Publishers Weekly

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Candace Robb

An Owen Archer Mystery

Anno Domini 1369. The much loved Queen Philippa lies dying at Windsor, and the plague has returned to the city of York. In an atmosphere of fear and superstition, rumours spread that a spate of deaths at St Leonard’s Hospital in York is no accident. The hospital is in debt and has suffered thefts: Sir Richard de Ravenser, Master of the Hospital, returns from Winchester painfully aware that scandal could ruin his own career. Anxious to avert a crisis, he requests the services of Owen Archer, spy for the Archbishop.

With plague rife and the city’s inhabitants besieging his wife, the Apothecary, for new cures, Owen Archer is unwilling to become involved. There is too little to link the victims to each other: the riddle seems unsolvable. But careful enquiries reveal a further riddle, connected to one of the victims. Is this where the truth lies?

‘A vivid portrait of 14th-century England which gives us a hero
who is cunning and capable’
Time Out

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Candace Robb

An Owen Archer Mystery

Through the wet spring of 1369 a pilgrimage wends its way to the sacred city of St David’s. Owen Archer, ex-soldier and sometime spy, accompanies the party to recruit archers for the Duke of Lancaster, who prepares to fight the French. But he and Geoffrey Chaucer have another, covert, mission: to ascertain whether the Duke’s steward at Cydweli is betraying him to Welsh rebels.