A Maze of Murders

A Maze of Murders

2003 • 264 pages

Ratings1

Average rating3

15

A violent past haunts Sir Walter Maltravers, the wealthy lord of Ingoldby Hall. As a commander during the War of the Roses, he fought alongside Edward IV at the bloody, fratricidal Battle of Towton. Decades earlier, and thousands of miles away, he served in the fanatical bodyguard of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus. There, as Turkish Jannisaries breached Constantinople’s walls and set the city aflame, Sir Walter committed what may have been an unforgivable sin: instead of defending the emperor with his last drop of blood, Maltravers fled. But not before scooping up all the treasure he could carry, including the Lacrima Christi---a giant ruby said to be a holy relic of incalculable value. When the ruby disappears from Canterbury’s Franciscan monastery, Sir Walter fears the emperor’s vengeful loyalists---the Athanatoi---have tracked him to his estate. He doesn’t have much time to ponder his dilemma. Crawling on his bare knees to the shrine at the center of his enormous private hedge maze, the penitent Sir Walter encounters his axe-wielding killer. . . . Maltravers’s head turns up days later, impaled on a pole. Gossips in Canterbury whisper of the fabled Athanatoi, come to claim their bloody due from a traitor. But apothecary Kathryn Swinbrooke doesn’t think so. Her Irish fiancée, Colum Murtagh, the King’s Commissioner in Canterbury, is called in to investigate the crimes. A Renaissance woman in a Middle Age world, Swinbroke comes to believe that all is not as it seems within the cozy confines of Ingoldby Hall. She asks tough questions of the wealthy power-players who seem to hover around the murder case. And before long, the death toll mounts: a maid, a madwoman, a scribe, a retainer. . . . One thing becomes abundantly clear: if Swinbrooke and Murtagh don’t nail down the killer---or killers---soon, they’ll be next!

Become a Librarian

Series

Featured Series

7 primary books

Kathryn Swinbrooke

Kathryn Swinbrooke is a 7-book series with 7 primary works first released in 1985 with contributions by Celia L. Grace and Paul Doherty.

A Shrine of Murders
The Eye of God (Kathryn Swinbrooke Mysteries, Book 2): A medieval mystery of murder and royal intrigue
The Merchant of Death
The Book of Shadows
Saintly Murders
A Maze of Murders
A Feast of Poisons

Reviews

Popular Reviews

Reviews with the most likes.

There are no reviews for this book. Add yours and it'll show up right here!


Top Lists

See all (4)

List

944 books

Mystery

Sepulchre
Foucault's Pendulum
Death on the Holy Mountain
A Great Deliverance
The Tomb of Zeus
Careless in Red
The Serpent's Tale

List

111 books

Library Stacks

The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R.
Ad Infinitum
A Far Better Rest
Dobrodružství Sherlocka Holmese
The Dead Travel Fast
A Woman of Consequence
Death Comes As Epiphany

List

428 books

Medieval

The Serpent's Tale
Timeline
A Rose for the Crown
World Without End
The Sunne in Splendour
When Christ and His Saints Slept
The Queen's Man