<DIV><P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">It is the summer of 1380 and the corpse of Edwin Chapler—clerk of the Office of the Green Wax of the Chancery—has been pulled from the Thames. Though Chapler's death was caused by drowning, he also received a vicious blow to the back of the head before his plunge into the river. Bartholomew Drayton—a usurer and money-lender—is then found dead in his strongroom, a crossbow firmly embedded in his chest. Sir John Cranston, the Coroner of the City of London, comes to survey the scene and is perplexed to find the windowless strongroom was locked and barred from the inside at the time of the murder. When other clerks are found murdered, each with a riddle pinned to his corpse, Cranston enlists the help of his secretarius Brother Athelstan, and together they must pit their wits against a deadly adversary bent on murder and mayhem.</P></DIV>