Cruel As the Grave

She was young, too young to have met so cruel an end. A poor peddler's daughter from the Welsh Marches, newly arrived in the city, she had been bedazzled by London's tastes and textures - above all by its freedom. It was a freedom that would serve her poorly. Someone, taking advantage of her guileless and sweet nature, had left her dead in St Mary Magdalene's churchyard, her ripped bodice testimony to her struggle, a bloodstained stone cross the solitary witness to her end. Justin de Quincy is the Queen's man, working on behalf of Eleanor of Acquitaine in her search for her missing son, Richard Lionheart. What has he to do with a commonplace murder, with the death of a poor man's child? Little by little, Justin is ensnared in the case until he comes to feel the force of the dead girl, perhaps even to love her as well. Committed to finding her killer, can he also bring the murderer to justice? The second medieval mystery from Sharon Penman, confirms her mastery of the form, as well as her talent as a storyteller.