By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him.

When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. Westerson (Shadow of the Alchemist, 2013, etc.) may not exhibit the depth of research other medieval mystery writers display, but her tortured protagonist is never dull, and his newest adventure leads to a swift and satisfying conclusion.Ī convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.īack in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. It’s clear that their cases are intertwined, but are three days enough time to work out the connection? With the help of a cross-dressing friend, Guest scours the city for clues, while Jack risks his life to help the queen. A piece of jewelry has been stolen from the queen, who fears its absence may be noted by the king, since it appears to implicate her in an affair with another man.

Meanwhile, Jack is removed from his prison cell to the apartments of Katherine Swynford, mistress of the duke of Lancaster, where his restless nature lands him in the queen’s garden and a problem of his own. Suspicion falls on the Scots, the former owners of what they call the Stone of Scone, but Guest is confused when he discovers several groups of Scots in London apparently working at cross purposes. Closer examination reveals that the explosion blew up a plaster imitation of the stone no one knows how long the real stone has been gone. Richard, who has no love for Guest, seizes Jack and gives Guest three days to find the stone before Jack is executed. When they attend a church service at Westminster Abbey, an explosion causes a near riot, and the Stone of Destiny is found to have vanished from its place beneath the Coronation Chair. Now he ekes out a living as The Tracker, a medieval private investigator, assisted by Jack Tucker, his young apprentice. An unfortunate coincidence brings a disgraced knight to the attention of the king he once plotted against.Ĭrispin Guest kept his head but little else when he was accused of treason against King Richard II.

The Silence of Stones by Jeri Westerson