A fast-paced and suspenseful medieaval mystery April, 1144. A body is found floating by Fladbury mill, a man who has been stabbed but not robbed. Undersheriff Hugh Bradecote, Serjeant Catchpoll and their young apprentice Walkelin discover him to be a horse dealer with a beautiful young wife who strays. Did the wife or a lover get rid of him? What link is there to a defrocked monk who was hanged for theft, and where is the horse dealer's steed? The trio must unravel the thread that ties together seemingly disparate deaths before even more people die.