The Council of Shadows: An Aldric Vane Mystery

He solves the cases nobody will pay for. She has a dead uncle nobody will investigate.Aldric Vane was a cleric once, until the Church excommunicated him for "heresy of logic." Now he works out of a cluttered study in Corvenna, charging three coins to find rings that fell down wells, with only a permanently offended gray cat for company.Then Lady Seraphine walks through his door.Her uncle, Bishop Aurelio, died in the abbey library three nights ago. The Church says his heart gave out. Sera says someone wanted it to look that way. She is right, and what lies buried beneath the abbey is older and far worse than murder.A pact struck centuries ago, beneath the mountain, before the Church laid its first stone. Renewed every seven generations with the blood of whoever sits on the throne. The seventh generation falls this year. The coronation is in three weeks.Standing between them and the truth is the Council of Shadows, a conspiracy of cardinals, dukes and merchants that has spent generations weaving itself into every institution in the city. They have already killed a bishop. They will not hesitate over an unlicensed investigator and a grieving noblewoman.Aldric has deduction, an unshakeable talent for bluffing, and a habit of talking his way into rooms he cannot talk his way out of. Sera has a sword, and handles it considerably better than he expects.They will need both.The first volume in a series of medieval fantasy mysteries, where the investigation is deadly serious and the investigators are anything but.