Kirjahaku

Stephen Attebrook, a crippled knight facing poverty and ruin, seems condemned to a quiet life when he takes a position as deputy coroner in the small medieval town of Ludlow. But instead, he plunges into a web of murder, espionage and intrigue.A death Attebrook rules an accidental drowning turns out to be a murder, and he must find the killer with little evidence pointing the way.Then a commission to return a runaway apprentice pitches him into the midst of a conflict between a rebellious earl and King Henry III that is about to erupt into civil war.Caught up in the twilight struggle among spies readying for war, Attebrook races to defend the apprentice against a charge of murder while dodging killers in the employ of one of the factions.Thirteenth century England has never been brought more vividly to life than in the pages of The Wayward Apprentice.

A secret list identifying the supporters of both King Henry and his rival for power Simon de Montfort has disappeared following the murder of the King's master spy in the west of England. Stephen Attebrook, the part-time deputy coroner for medieval Ludlow, must find Baynard's list for his former master, the grasping and ambitious crown justice Ademar de Valence - projecting Attebrook into a cesspit of medieval murder, espionage, intrigue and betrayal.Attebrook faces his greatest challenge as a discoverer of secrets as he races to obtain the list before a rival gets it first, while the life of someone close to him hangs on the outcome.

November 1262 is an unlikely season for war. But war nonetheless is coming to the March, the wild borderland between England and Wales. Not the war that most fear between the supporters of the King and the rebellious barons uniting around Simon de Montfort, but with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Welsh warlord who styles himself Prince of Wales and who has united the fractious tribes of his land against the English. The English are uncertain, however, where and when the blow will fall. So, Sir Geoffrey Randall, coroner of Herefordshire, dispatches his deputy, the impoverished knight Stephen Attebrook, to the border town of Clun to make contact with a spy in order to learn Llywelyn's plans. At the same time, Randall directs Attebrook to investigate the murder of a monk found dead in his bed at the Augustine priory of St. George at Clun. The assignment casts Attebrook into the middle of a desperate feud between the priory and the lord of Clun and reveals a forbidden love that can only result in suffering and death.

British forces spread across the rebellious colonies, crushing all resistance now that George Washington is dead and the American army is dispersed. But defeat is merely a reckoning postponed. A few die-hards flee west into the Tennessee and the unsettled wilderness beyond the frontiers of British control, where after many years a leader arises among them, Andrew Jackson.Yet the British cannot ignore these upstarts, and Banastre Tarleton eventually arrives to crush them as well. Those who survive, lead by Jackson, escape into the Spanish Empire - to Texas. Still, even within the Empire the fugitives are not safe and free, for Spanish tyranny bears upon them. So Jackson and his friends pool their resources to buy a warship. Renamed the T.S. Wasp, they dispatch her to acquire guns for the Texas Army. On the way, Wasp finds more than they expected.In this second book of the Lone Star Rising series, Captain John Paul Jones II, David Crockett, and their crew set sail aboard the T.S. Wasp in another gripping adventure. The fate of Texas and the world teeters in the balance.

A sudden thaw on Christmas Day reveals to Harry the beggar a dead girl of extraordinary beauty frozen beneath the snow off the pathway to Saint Laurence's church in medieval Ludlow. It looks like murder, and medieval deputy coroner Stephen Attebrook, a poverty-stricken knight, feels compelled to find those responsible.It is a task that propels him into the domain of his worst enemy, Earl Percival FitzAllan, where he must play an involuntary role in the shadow war of espionage and raid being waged between the supporters of King Henry III and the rebellious barons under Simon de Montfort - a game that could cost him his life.

Stephen Attebrook, the deputy coroner of medieval Ludlow, wants more than anything to be part of an army gathering for an invasion of Wales, hoping for a stroke of luck that will bring him to the attention of some magnate and free him from poverty.But as the army is about to depart, a castle guard is found murdered at the foot of the castle walls and the precious relic of a saint intended as a gift for Prince Edward goes missing from a locked and guarded chamber.Stephen's superior, Sir Geoffrey Randall, is quick to volunteer his services to Edward to find the relic. The commission pitches Stephen into the path of a bitter and powerful enemy, Earl Percival FitzAllen. And the search for the relic - and the guard's killer - leads to adventure deep into Wales itself, where Stephen finds the battle he craves.

Medieval Ludlow's deputy coroner, Stephen Attebrook would like nothing better than to enjoy a temperate spring, the Broken Shield Inn's sweet ale and delicious mutton stew. But a murdered man in possession of stolen stamps for minting money is found floating in the inn's privy. And counterfeit money turns up in the hands of innkeepers Gilbert and Edith Wistwode.Possessing counterfeit money is a hanging offense, and to save his friends from the gallows, Stephen pursues those behind a desperate plot to mint false money - intrigue that stretches into the upper reaches of English society and threatens the throne of King Henry III.

Ari Thorgilsson builds a cargo ship, the Uxi, in a desperate attempt to save the family from poverty and ruin. Ari sails it out of his home in the fjords of Norway to the Orkney Islands and then into the Irish Sea, where a chance encounter makes an enemy of Ivar the Younger, a son of the Danish Viking Ivar the Boneless. While pursued by Ivar the Younger, a storm drives the ship onto the rocky coast of a hostile land, where the ship is wrecked he and the crew are captured by native Britons. Execution or enslavement seem to be their fate. But there is yet hope, for Artgal, king of the British kingdom of Alt Clut, is in need of warriors. He promises Ari a new ship if he and his companions garrison a fortress on the border with the Picts to the north, while he takes an army to fight the Angles in the east. Ari and his friends accept the offer, and plunge into a year of intrigue and battle in the depths of the land that one day will be known as Scotland, testing their mettle and their commitment to their honor. A Pictish invasion seems to spell the end of Ari's dream of a new ship. And then a fleet of Danish Vikings sails into the River Clut to lay siege to Argtal's fortress, thrusting that dream well beyond his grasp. Or does it?

A dead girl is found floating in the River Teme at one of medieval Ludlow's mills, drowned under mysterious circumstances that only the most addle-witted could think was anything but murder.Yet Stephen Attebrook, an impoverished knight and sometime deputy coroner, can spare no time to investigate this crime. He and his friend Gilbert Wistwode must pursue a more immediate threat - unknown ruffians traveling under the guise of bear baiters have kidnapped Stephen's niece, Ida, his estranged brother William's daughter, along with other young women across England. Set against the backdrop of war brewing between King Henry III and rebellious barons arrayed about Simon de Montfort, a desperate chase of the bear wagon across England unfolds, reaching to the depths of London itself and far into Norfolk, as Stephen races to find Ida before she meets a fate worse than murder. The Bear Wagon is Stephen's most complex and dangerous adventure yet.