The Richest Man in Town (A Stephen Attebrook Mystery)

Harry Carver, the legless artisan, and his wife Joan find the corpse of the richest man in Ludlow in the dead man’s back garden on a snowbound November morning. Wool merchant Laurence Hoketon’s head is bashed in, a clear case of murder.

But there are no witnesses to the crime, and the town’s leading finder, the knight-coroner Stephen Attebrook, and his companion and clerk, Gilbert Wistwode, are stumped. The town’s leading citizens clamor for a quick arrest but the two men have no suspects or significant clues. The indications point to simple robbery. But was it more sinister? For the day after the gruesome discovery, someone unknown redeemed a letter of credit made out by Hoketon for five-hundred pounds — a huge fortune in hard money.

While Stephen puzzles over how to solve this bewildering crime, the winds of war interfere. For despite King Henry’s catastrophic loss to the rebellious barons under Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Lewes, which should have decided matters, the king’s partisans in the Welsh March have not given up. Under Baron Roger Mortimer, they plot a rising.

Pivotal to that rising is the recovery of Ludlow Castle from the baron’s forces — a task given to Stephen, who has only a handful of men to carry out the attack on the seemingly impregnable fortress.

Walk alongside Stephen and Gilbert in the muddy streets of medieval Ludlow as they struggle with two impossible tasks at once while the corpses pile up around them.