Bernard Knight at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 09/07/2007

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Bernard Knight - Page 2

Paperback - Pocket Books (2003)

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (2003)

Fear In The Forest
See Review by Phyllis Davis
The seventh gripping medieval murder mystery featuring Crowner John, Devon's first county coroner; C12th Devon. Much of the country lies under the iron rule of the Royal Forest laws, with all hunting reserved to the King. The penalty for killing a deer on the King's land is mutilation or death. These harsh laws are rigorously upheld by the King's foresters, notorious for their greed and corruption. June 1195. A tall, brown mare gallops into the sleepy village of Sigford, its rider dragged by the stirrup, the broken shaft of an arrow protruding from his back. The embroidered badge on the dead man's tunic identifies him as a senior officer of the Royal Forest. But, with plenty of money still in the victim's purse, the motive is a mystery. When a second forest officer is violently attacked, Sir John de Wolfe begins to uncover evidence of a sinister conspiracy. And why is his unscrupulous brother-in-law, the sheriff Sir Richard de Revelle, taking such an interest in the case?

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (2002)

Paperback - Pocket Books (2003)

The Grim Reaper
May 1195, and Sir John de Wolfe, Devon’s first county coroner, is summoned at dawn one morning to inspect a corpse which has been discovered in Exeter’s cathedral precinct, only a few hundred paces away from his own doorstep.
Aaron of Salisbury, a Jewish money-lender who was well-known locally, has been found dead, his held enveloped in a brown leather money-bag, the draw-strings pulled tight around his neck. The crabbed handwriting on a scrap of folded parchment clutched in the dead man’s fingers is deciphered by Crowner John’s clerk as a quotation from the Gospel of St Mark: ‘And Jews went into the temple . . . and overthrew the tables of the money-changers. ‘
This is just the start of a strange series of murders in which an appropriate biblical text is left at the scene of the crime. Setting out to track down a literate and Bible-learned killer in an age when only one per cent of the population can read or write, Sir John deduces that he is looking for a homicidal priest.
But with at least twenty-five parish churches in Exeter, the killer could be any one of more than a hundred clerics - and Crowner John can expect no help whatsoever from the sheriff Sir Richard de Revelle who, deep in corruption with the county finances, is obsessed only with covering up his tracks before the impending visit of the King’s Justices.
In this, his sixth outing, Sir John de Wolfe, one of historical fiction’s most enduring characters, tackles his most disturbing and intriguing investigation to date.
Praise for the Crowner John Series
‘Sir John de Wolfe is a truly powerful character’ Shots
‘Bernard Knight brings medieval Exeter to life with gritty realism, smells and all, but with an underlying sympathy and humour’ Historical Novels Review

Paperback - Pocket Books (2001)

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (2001)

The Tinner's Corpse
Crowner John rides again, as he investigates the mysterious disappearance of an influential tin merchant.
Crowner John is summoned to the bleak Devonshire moors to investigate the murder of the overman of a tin mining gang working for Walter Knapman, one of Devon's most powerful tin merchants. The case is puzzling, but things get even more confusing when Walter disappears.
A decapitated body, a missing tinner, a disgruntled band of miners and a mad Saxon. How on earth can Crowner John sort all this out when his wife and mistress hate him, and his clerk is in the grip of a suicidal depression? Surely things can't get any worse?

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (2000)

Paperback - Pocket Books (2000)

The Awful Secret
Bernard Knight once more takes us back to the twelfth century when Sir John de Wolfe, Devon's first county coroner, travelled the county investigating murder and mayhem and attempting to bring order to the chaos and violence that surrounded him.
Following his adventures on the tourney field, Crowner John has been unable to carry out his duties due to a broken leg. But with the vigorous, if resentful, nursing of his wife Matilda, he is finally able to get back on his horse unaided. And just in time, because John is being stalked by a mysterious figure, who seems to be watching his every move.
Intrigued and irritated by this presence, John's henchman Gwyn finally manages to catch up with the man and no one is more surprised than John at the identity of his stalker…
Gilbert de Rideford is a Knight of the Temple of Solomon, and an acquaintance from John and Gwyn's crusading days. He claims to have come into possession of an awful secret that could shake Christendom to its very foundations. He desperately needs John's help to escape from the secretive order of warrior monks - an order so powerful that they lend money to Kings and are answerable only to the Pope. Sceptical, but nevertheless intrigued, John agrees to help, but when three Knights Templar and an important Papal messenger arrive in Exeter, John begins to take Gilbert seriously.
Suddenly, John is swept into a world of religious intrigue and dangerous politics which takes him on a life-threatening mission to the Island of Lundy - inhabited solely by notorious pirates - and finally leads him to the revelation of Gilbert's secret, and a new found belief in the terrible wrath of God.

British Pbk Original - Pocket Books (1999)

Crowner's Quest
See Review by John Boyles
Meticulously researched and resonant with the sights and sounds of the time, Bernard Knight skillfully brings Medieval England, with its dangerous politics and power struggles, to life. Many of the characters actually existed in medieval Devon, but as Professor Knight explains "Crowner John had to be fictitious, because the name of the first coroner was never recorded."
Christmas Eve, 1194. Sir John de Wolfe gratefully escapes a party being given by his wife Matilda, to examine the body of a Canon who has been found hanged. Suicide is suspected, but it is soon apparent that there is more to this case than meets the eye. As always, John's investigations are hampered by his brother-in-law, the sheriff Sir Richard de Revelle. But when a local lord is killed, John begins to suspect that the cases are linked and Sir Richard's reasons for delaying the investigation may be more serious than the usual petty vengeance.
desperately trying to deflect Sir Richard's plots against him, John is soon at loggerheads with Matilda, and even his mistress Nesta. And as he digs deeper, he uncovers a deadly conspiracy that could cost him far more than the women in his life.