The King's Bishop: An Owen Archer Mystery

In 1367, in the waning years of his reign, Edward III opposes Pope Urban V by trying to win the personal loyalty of English churchmen. Meanwhile, the king is also dealing with his own advisors' hatred of the royal mistress, Alice Perrers. Owen Archer, spy and steward for Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England, last encountered in The Nun's Tale, must come to the rescue of his old friend, Ned Townley, a soldier and spy for the Duke of Lancaster and subject of gossip after the suspicious death of a young page whose attentions to Townley's intended, Perrers' maid, had angered the soldier. Sent away from court to help garner support for the king from powerful monasteries, Townley, in the company of a friar, Don Ambrose, disappears in the wilderness north of York. Archer considers his dual loyalties as he searches the northern desolation. After finding the friar's murdered corpse, he strives to prevent Townley from becoming a disposable pawn in tangled intrigue. Robb's complex and sometimes ambiguous tale is replete with plausible nobles, churchmen and commoners, particularly Alice Perrers, who lives life on a tightrope while trying to help her maid, whose lowly origins reflect her own. Robb continues to adeptly blend politics with period detail and three-dimensioned characterization in the Owen Archer tales. (Oct.)