The Tintern Treasure

Sedley gets the proportions of history and mystery just right in her solid 21st Roger the Chapman whodunit (after 2011’s The Midsummer Crown). In the fall of 1483, England is in tumult after the boy king, Edward V, has been deposed in favor of Richard III, Edward’s uncle. Since not everyone supports the regime change, a rebellion aimed at reseating Edward V has begun to gather strength as rumors swirl that the new monarch has ordered the deaths of his predecessor and the boy’s younger brother, the so-called princes in the Tower. Against this chaotic background, Roger’s wife, Adela, asks him to visit a friend of hers in Hereford, where Roger winds up embroiled in an inquiry into a fellow traveler’s murder and the related theft of some ancient documents from an abbot’s rooms. Sedley’s perspective on the dramatic events of the time will intrigue fans of Josephine Tey’s classic The Daughter of Time. (Aug.)