The Tide Gate Murders
A Medieval Port Watch Investigation

About this book:

The wind off the estuary carries more than the stench of rotting bladderwrack and tallow—it carries a killer. When the King's sub-sheriff slams the great iron chain across Oakhaven's harbor mouth, sealing the port by royal decree, Sergeant Nicholas Elyot knows the murderer of Lord William is trapped inside with twenty thousand souls and nowhere to run. But the tide waits for no manhunt, and when a customs clerk turns up pinned to the Tide Gate with his throat cut and shipwright's tar on his shoulders, Nicholas realizes the lord's death was only the first move in a far deadlier game.

Seven years walking the salt-slick quays have taught Nicholas that in Oakhaven, every corpse pulls a net of secrets: smuggler's codes and merchant's ledgers, bailiff's corruption and guildmaster's lies. With the King's peace hanging by a thread, a sub-sheriff threatening to burn the fleet, and the Flanders fleet bearing down on a closed harbor, Nicholas has until the chain drops to untangle the truth—or watch the city drown in its own greed.

Atmospheric, gritty, and alive with the clang of capstans and the whisper of knives in the dark, *The Tide Gate Murders* launches a medieval procedural where the tides themselves keep the clock. For fans of C.J. Sansom, Susanna Gregory, and anyone who likes their mysteries weighted with history and salt.