The Lammas Feast

Roger the Chapman Mystery #11 July 1478, and business is good for Bristol’s bakers during the lead up to Lammastide – ‘Loaf-mass’, the ancient harvest festival. But the shady Jasper Fairbrother’s baking days are over when he’s found face down with a knife in his back. Suspicion immediately falls on the mysterious Breton who’d arrived that day and had been seen having an argument with Fairbrother. But when it emerges that the Breton is also a suspected Lancastrian spy, Roger the Chapman wonders if suspicion of murder is merely a convenient pretext for the authorities to hunt down the Breton. True, there is no reason for Roger to take an interest in the case, and should he when he ought to be peddling his wares to provide for his new baby boy? But his curiosity and sense of justice is piqued – and before he finds out who murdered the baker, he is to become more than a little personally involved as some of the things nearest and dearest to his heart come under threat.