The Weaver's Tale

During the bitterly icy January of 1474, in the English river port of Bristol, Roger the Chapman falls desperately ill with the ague. In his third absorbing appearance, after The Plymouth Cloak , Roger is taken in and nursed by weaver's widow Margaret Walker and her fiesty daughter Lillis. While recuperating, he learns that a handsome young rakehell had been hanged for murdering Margaret's father, although several months later the alleged victim had wandered home, injured, ill and slightly amnesiac, and subsequently died. Many townspeople, doubting the older man's probity and suspecting his family of criminal activity, are harassing Margaret and Lillis. Roger, who has forsaken monastery life for the carefree existence of an intinerant peddler, believes God has placed him in Bristol to untangle the affair. The paths of his investigation lead him to Irish slavers who raid the English coast; the Lollards, whose ``heretical'' religious reform movement foreshadows Henry VIII's break with Rome; Welsh tin miners living in the dense forest; and wealthy Bristol burghers. An attempt on Roger's life comes before he resolves the mystery--and finds himself happily wed. Rich detail and a satisfyingly concluded plot make this series a continuing pleasure. (May)