One Corpse Too Many

England is tearing itself apart in the war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud. When Shrewsbury Castle falls to Stephen's forces, ninety-four of its defenders are hanged as an example. Brother Cadfael is given the grim task of laying out the dead for burial, and among them he finds a ninety-fifth body: a man who was strangled and only afterward dressed to look like one more casualty of the executions.

Cadfael's search for the killer takes him through a city under occupation, tangled up with a missing hoard of treasure, a girl disguised as a boy to survive the chaos, and a sharp-eyed young officer of King Stephen's named Hugh Beringar, who becomes as much a rival as an ally in working out the truth.

Second in the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, this volume trades the abbey's quiet cloisters for a city in the aftermath of siege, and introduces Hugh Beringar, who becomes one of the series' most enduring supporting figures.