I stumbled on to this series and this, the third in the series, is the second one I've read. Jecks does a great job of setting the scene. He's obviously done his research. As a result it's easy to connect with the characters and their assumptions, concerns, and devotion to duty. The major protagonists in the series, Bailiff Simon Puttock and Templar Knight Sir Baldwin Furnshil seem to exemplify what was good about medieval society. The background of this story is the tension between landowners and tin miners who were under special protection of the King because of the taxes they paid and could run their own affairs with their own courts, prevent the use of particular pieces of land for farming by binding areas as a place where tin was mined, even divert water. These priveleges could be and often were used to terrorize the landowners. The plot is developed from the hanging of a villein (serf), Peter Bruther, turned miner on the moor. His previous masters, the Beaucyr family are suspect after confronting Bruther and the miners' leader Thomas Smyth. As Puttock and Sir Baldwin try to solve the murder, events begin to escalate to a major incident. The process of sorting out all the threads to identify the murderer carries the reader to a satisfying conclusion.While there are sections of the novel that drag, on the other hand, I did learn a lot about the workings of the medieval legal system. I recommend this book, unreservedly.
