John Gower

In Chaucer's London, betrayal, murder, and intrigue swirl around the existence of a prophetic book that foretells the deaths of England's kings London, 1385. Surrounded by ruthless courtiers-including his powerful uncle, John of Gaunt, and Gaunt's artful mistress, Katherine Swynford-England's young king, Richard II, is in mortal peril. Songs are heard across London-catchy verses said to originate from an ancient book that prophesies the ends of England's kings-and among the book's predictions is Richard's assassination. Only a few powerful men know that the cryptic lines derive from a "burnable book," a seditious work that threatens the stability of the realm. To find the manuscript, wily bureaucrat Geoffrey Chaucer turns to fellow poet John Gower, a professional trader in information with connections high and low. Gower discovers that the book and incriminating evidence about its author have fallen into the unwitting hands of innocents, who will be drawn into a conspiracy that reaches from the king's court to London's slums and stews-and potentially implicates Gower's own son. As the intrigue deepens, it becomes clear that John Gower, a man with secrets of his own, may hold the key to saving the king, and England itself. Medieval scholar Bruce Holsinger draws on his vast knowledge of the period to add colorful, authentic detail-on everything from poetry and bookbinding to court intrigues and brothels-to this highly entertaining and brilliantly constructed literary mystery that brings medieval England gloriously to life.

The author of the acclaimed medieval mystery A Burnable Book once again brings fourteenth-century London alive in all its color and detail in this riveting thriller featuring medieval poet and fixer John Gower-a twisty tale rife with intrigue, danger mystery, and murder. Though he is one of England's most acclaimed intellectuals, John Gower is no stranger to London's wretched slums and dark corners, and he knows how to trade on the secrets of the kingdom's most powerful men. When the bodies of sixteen unknown men are found in a privy, the Sheriff of London seeks Gower's help. The men's wounds-ragged holes created by an unknown object-are unlike anything the sheriff's men have ever seen. Tossed into the sewer, the bodies were meant to be found. Gower believes the men may have been used in an experiment-a test for a fearsome new war weapon his informants call the "handgonne," claiming it will be the "future of death" if its design can be perfected. Propelled by questions of his own, Gower turns to courtier and civil servant Geoffrey Chaucer, who is working on some poems about pilgrims that Gower finds rather vulgar. Chaucer thinks he just may know who commissioned this new weapon, an extremely valuable piece of information that some will pay a high price for-and others will kill to conceal. . .