Spiteful Bones
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The restoration of a crumbling manor house leaves Crispin Guest grappling with a troubling discovery in this entertaining medieval noir mystery.
Restoring his recently inherited family home is a daunting enough task for young lawyer Nigellus Cobmartin without the addition of any unwelcome discoveries. But when workmen turning the crumbling manor house into a grand home for Nigellus and his companion, John Rykener, uncover a skeleton bound, tied and hidden in the wall – and holding the precious relic that went missing from his father’s estate nearly twenty years ago – Nigellus immediately calls on London tracker Crispin Guest for help.
Whose bones are they, and why was the valuable relic buried with the thief? Crispin and Jack are drawn into a mystery of dark secrets, family scandal and old grudges as they attempt to find the truth behind a load of old bones.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Westerson's middling 14th medieval noir (after 2019's Sword of Shadows), set in 1398 London, disgraced knight Crispin Guest, now an investigator known as the Tracker, is summoned to the home of his friend Nigellus Cobmartin after a man's skeleton is found plastered into a wall. The man's bound hands hold a gem-studded gold reliquary, which was stolen from the household 20 years earlier. The remains are believed to be those of Wilfrid Roke, a servant whose disappearance coincided with the theft. Guest concludes that the killer is alive and in the Cobmartin home after he finds that crucial household records from 1378 have just been burnt. Anachronistic language ("Welcome to my world") and clunky phrasing ("Something about it stirred the cauldron of his thoughts, but try as he might, it would not rise to the surface") don't help an unmemorable plot. Neither the solution nor the recreation of the period stands out. Readers will hope for a return to form.
