Cruel As the Grave

April 1193. England's King Richard Lionheart languishes in a German prison, and treason scents the air. Richard's younger brother, John, seizes Windsor Castle, and Dowager Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine summons her trusted personal "queen's man," Justin de Quincy, to do the impossible mediate a truce with her rebel son. Amid such fateful events, the murder of a Welsh peddler's daughter seems small. But the cruel demise of the beautiful Melangell so troubles Justin that not even a threatened French invasion can keep him from investigating her death. Yet can he bring Melangell's craven killer to justice?

<b>Sharon Kay Penman</b> has lived in England and Wales and currently resides in New Jersey. She is the author of six other novels: <i>Falls the Shadow</i>, <i>Here Be Dragons</i>, <i>The Reckoning</i>, <i>The Sunne in Splendour</i>, <i>When Christ and His Saints Slept</i>, and the first Justin de Quincy adventure: <i>The Queen’s Man</i>.