Blood Lance by Jeri Westerson

April 5, 2021

Blood Lance by Jeri Westerson

Returning home late one night, Crispin Guest (dishonored knight, aka The Tracker) sees someone fall from one of the buildings on London Bridge. He attempts to save the man but is too late - he is already dead. Crispin learns that the man was an armorer with a shop on London Bridge. The death is ruled a suicide but the man's family is dissatisfied with the verdict and so is Crispin.

In a twist of events, a friend of Crispin's from his former life as a knight was one of the armorer's clients and has been promised a relic that would make him unbeatable in battle. The knight suspects that the relic is the Spear of Longinus that was used to pierce Christ's side at the crucifixion. But a number of other people are also interested in locating the relic, including Crispin's old friend Geoffrey Chaucer, who seems to know a lot more about the Spear than the average person would.

This is the fifth Crispin Guest book. Crispin is a traditional noir detective set during the Middle Ages: he is honorable and lives by his own code, he is always broke so he takes cases that he probably shouldn't because he needs the cash, and there is always a damsel in distress that he falls for. I love the descriptions of medieval London and life in the Middle Ages, especially for those living in the Shambles area.

I highly recommend this series for anyone who enjoys mysteries set in the Middle Ages.

The shops on London Bridge in the Middle Ages