A CHOIR OF CROWS
by Candace Robb
In the winter of 1374, a new archbishop, about to be enthroned in York, brings with him disharmony and death.
Having watched Ronan, the vicar of incoming archbishop Alexander Neville, exchange cloaks with a stranger, Brother Michaelo hears an angelic voice singing and then rescues a disheveled youth accused of pushing an unknown man off the chapter house roof and then killing Ronan. When Michaelo takes the youth to the home of local lawman Capt. Owen Archer and his apothecary wife, Lucie, for questioning, they discover that the youth is an exhausted young woman whose tale will entangle Archer, who, aside from his duties in York, is also a spy for Prince Edward, in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the powerful Neville family. At the cottage of Magda the healer, Archer meets the musician Ambrose, an old friend returned from years in the French court, who’s come to warn that Edward’s physicians have been slowly poisoning him. On Ambrose’s return trip from France he met and protected the woman posing as a lad, and it was Ambrose who exchanged cloaks with Ronan, muddying the investigation, since both men had murderous enemies. The young woman finally reveals herself as Marian, a nun stolen away from the life she loves. Hers is just a piece of the puzzle Archer must solve in an atmosphere of distrust and fear.
A mélange of medieval political plotting and returning characters sure to please fans of historical mysteries.