Bernard Knight at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 01/04/2009

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Bernard Knight - Page 2

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (2005)

Figure of Hate
October, 1195. High-spirited young knights, drunken squires, pickpockets and horse thieves are pouring into Exeter for a one-day jousting tournament. Not even the discovery of a naked corpse in the River Exe can spoil the excitement.
During the tournament there’s a serious altercation between Hugo Peverel, a manor lord from Tiverton, and a Frenchman by the name of Reginald de Charterai. When, two days later, Sir Hugo’s bloodsoaked body is found in a barn on his estate, de Charterai would seem the obvious culprit.
But there’s no shortage of people who wished the hated Hugo dead. All three of his brothers have a motive; as do his stepmother and attractive young widow. The manor reeve, Warin Fishacre, had his own reasons to loathe his lord and master.
With so many suspects, Sir John de Wolfe, the county coroner, hardly knows where to begin. And just what is the connection between Sir Hugo’s murder and the battered body in the River Exe?

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (2004)

Paperback - Pocket Books (2004)

The Witch Hunter
Exeter, 1195. When a wealthy mill-owner falls dead across his horse, Sir John de Wolfe, the county coroner, declines to hold an inquest as the man was considerably overweight, had been complaining of chest pains for some weeks and shows no signs of injury. A clear-cut case of death from natural causes.
Events take a sinister turn when a straw doll is discovered hidden beneath the man’s saddle-bag, a thin metal spike through its heart.
Convinced her husband’s death was caused by an evil spell, the victim’s strident widow joins forces with her cousin, Canon Gilbert de Bosco, to begin a campaign against witchcraft and the so-called `cunning women’ who practise it. Soon Exeter is in turmoil, an hysterical mob is on the loose and several local women are in danger.
Still the coroner refuses to get involved - until his own mistress falls under suspicion. Crowner John must bring all his knowledge and skill to bear if he is to discover the real cause of the merchant’s death, unearth the culprit - and save his beloved Nesta from the hangman’s noose.
Both a gripping crime novel and a fascinating portrait of 12th century life, The Witch Hunter is the eighth compelling murder mystery to feature Sir John de Wolfe, Devon’s first county coroner.

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?