Michael Jecks "The Death Ship of Dartmouth"

 

The year is 1324. Actually it isn't, it's 2008 but the book is set in 1324... This is Book 21 in the Medieval West Country Mystery series and a disastrous autumn looms large, for as the leaves begin to fall, there are those who wish to bring the Kingdom down as well. In Dartmouth, a man is found lying dead in the road. But the inhabitants of this little haven dismiss his death as a drunken accident, their attentions turned to more worrying matters--piracy. A ship, the St. John, has been discovered, half-ravaged and the crew missing, in an attack that bears all the hallmarks of pirates. Our hero, Sir Baldwin of Furnshill, has been told by Bishop Stapledon of spies being sent to the great traitor Roger Mortimer. If this is true and messages are reaching Mortimer, civil war in England is inevitable. And so the Kingdom's most powerful and ruthless men demand that Baldwin and Bailiff Simon Puttock uncover the truth, and quickly. This is to be the most important investigation of their lives... until the next one. Enjoyable light-hearted reading, as ever.