"In late fourteenth-century England, Crispin Guest is a man adrift in a culture where position is rigidly defined. Guest - once a knight, a member of the upper tiers of society - was convicted of treason and stripped of his rank and his honor for plotting against King Richard II. Having lost his patron, his friends, his betrothed, and his position at court, and with no trade to support him and no family willing to acknowledge him, Crispin has turned to the one thing he still has - his wits - to scrape out a living on the mean streets of London." "In 1384, Crispin is called to the compound of a successful but reclusive cloth merchant who suspects his wife of infidelity and wants Crispin to look into the matter. In dire need of money, Crispin reluctantly agrees and discovers that the wife is indeed up to something. But when he comes to inform his client, he finds the merchant dead - clearly murdered - in a sealed room, locked from the inside. Now Crispin has come to the unwanted attention of the Lord Sheriff of London and finds himself in the middle of a complex plot involving dark secrets, international intrigue, and a missing religious relic - one that lies at the very heart of this heinous and impossible crime."--BOOK JACKET.
