The Hanging Tree

Set in 1382, Doherty’s memorable 21st mystery featuring Brother Athelstan (after 2020’s The Stone of Destiny) poses multiple baffling puzzles that are all resolved logically. Athelstan and his superior and friend, Sir John Cranston, Lord High Coroner of London, are summoned to the House of the Exchequer in Westminster following a spectacular robbery and mass murder. Five armed clerks were garroted, with no signs of resistance, behind a double-locked door at the top of a tower accessible only via a booby-trapped narrow staircase. Whoever murdered the men also made off with tens of thousands of pounds worth of gold and silver coins that they’d been guarding, leaving behind bags of burnt charcoal. The money was intended to be used to repay the Crown’s debt to Italian bankers who’d loaned considerable sums to prop up the rule of Richard II. Meanwhile, Athelstan must also solve the case of a killer who’s stabbed six hangmen through the heart before leaving their corpses on dung heaps. As always, Doherty makes a past century come alive in the service of a carefully crafted plot. Impossible crime fans will be pleased. (June)