As the leading churchmen and women gather at the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD to debate the rival merits of the Celtic and Roman Churches, tempers begin to fray. Conspirators plot an assassination, while mysterious, violent death stalks the shadowy cloisters of the Abbey of St Hilda. When the Abbess Étain, a leading speaker for the Celtic Church, is found murdered suspicion inevitably rests on the Roman faction.

Attending the Synod is Fidelma, of the community of St Brigid of Kildare. Sister Fidelma is an advocate of the Brehon Court and her legal expertise means that she is called on to investigate the murder, with Brother Eadulf, of the Roman faction. However, the two are so unlike that their partnership is described as that of a wolf and a fox - but which is which?

More gruesome deaths follow and the friction among the clerics threatens to split the kingdom into civil war. Can the solution to the mysteries avert such a conflict?

First published in 1994
Headline, 1995

- Peter Tremayne is the fiction pseudonym of a well-known authority on the ancient Celts, who utilises his knowledge of the Brehon law system and 7th-century Irish society to create a new concept in detective fiction.

You can find the book on the book buffet at the BookCrossing Convention or somewhere around Oxford between 10th and 12th April.

I love the Sister Fidelma series and I have recently read another copy of this one, sent to me from France. Couldn't resist taking this one back to Cardiff to release at one of the OBCZs.

On the bookcrossing shelf down stairs.
Thanks for finding this book
Please write a journal entry letting me know that this book was caught and has found a safe home with you. (It's anonymous, and you don't have to join Bookcrossing to do it.) Then read this book or give it to a friend. Afterwards hopefully, you or your friend will release it again for someone else to find - just like you did.
If you are new to Bookcrossing and would like to join, please give Coffee-1-OBCZ or any other journaler as your referral member. Enjoy your book and when you have finished reading come back here and let us know when and where you will pass the book on to another reader. Write a review if you like, then release it and come back anytime to see what happened to it next.

Happy reading.

Picked up at Coffee #1 or our brief visit to Cardiff.

I loved this book. It's the first time I have met sister Fidelma, and it won't be the last. Usually when I discover a new series, I join it half way through, but this just happens to be the first book.

I have been to all the places mentioned in the book, except for Ireland. I love Lindisfarne, Iona and Whitby. We stayed in the restored abbey on Iona with a bunch of folks from churches all over the world. Would love to go back sometime. It took us 2 days o get there from Yorkshire, so who knows how long it would have taken Fidelma to travel from Iona to Whitby, and all that was before the town's famous fish and chips was invented!

Can't wait to get stuck into more of these books!

On the way to my partner in the U.K. Secret Santa Exchange

Happy Christmas!

Safely received whilst I was away for the holidays

Received as one of a lovely big heap of books to take to the 2018 BCUK Unconvention in Ipswich.

Happy trails, little book! I hope you have an interesting journey!

Passing through my hands again. To be released on Sunday probably on the bus trip. Let’s see where it ends up!

In the telephone box.
Thanks for finding this book
Please write a journal entry letting me know that this book was caught and has found a safe home with you. (It's anonymous, and you don't have to join Bookcrossing to do it.) Then read this book or give it to a friend. Afterwards hopefully, you or your friend will release it again for someone else to find - just like you did.
If you are new to Bookcrossing and would like to join, please give Coffee-1-OBCZ or any other journaler as your referral member. Enjoy your book and when you have finished reading come back here and let us know when and where you will pass the book on to another reader. Write a review if you like, then release it and come back anytime to see what happened to it next.

Happy reading.