The murders of three Christian children are being blamed on the innocent Jews of 12th century Cambridge, England in the first installment of this historical mystery series. In order to clear their name, King Henry calls for an expert, a master of the art of death, to determine who is really to blame. Instead, he gets a mistress, Adelia Aguilar, a trained physician from Salerno, Italy. She is talented, stubborn and on a dangerous mission to discover the real killer, who is still roaming Cambridge, perhaps under her very nose.

Adelia is definitely out of her element among the strict social confines of her surroundings, but she still manages to gather clues based on the forensic evidence she collects from the corpses of the dead children and with the help of her travel companion, Simon, and the young eel catcher, Ulf. The book is a medieval spin on a forensic thriller and readers will enjoy the rising tension as Adelia hones in on the killer.