The Eye of God

In this atmospheric mystery set in 15th-century England, physician Kathryn Swinbrooke, introduced in last year's A Shrine of Murders , investigates murder in the bloody aftermath of the War of the Roses. Before Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, is killed in battle, he gives his squire Robert Brandon a famed jewel, the Eye of God, to take to the monks in Canterbury to arrange masses for his soul. Brandon is captured and dies in prison but no jewel is recorded among his possessions. Edward IV, of the victorious House of York, sets Colum Murtagh, his special commissioner in Canterbury, to find the stone, which had originally belonged to his father, Richard of York; the king asks Kathryn to investigate the manner of Brandon's death. As Colum's interrogations continue, more murders occur. Katherine's knowledge of both anatomy and human nature combine with a clue found in Chaucer's ``Pardoner's Tale'' to lead Colum to the resolution in this promising new pseudonymous series from medieval mystery writer P. C. Doherty. (July)