Hangman Blind

Book One – HANGMAN BLIND

This is the first book about Hildegard, published by John Murray in hardback (March 2008) and in paperback (September 2008). It is also in large print and in a cd and cassette collection read by the excellent Julia Barry. The American edition was published in October 2008 by St Martin’s Press.

The title HANGMAN BLIND comes from a game played at the court of the young King Richard II and his wife Anne of Bohemia. It was like the game we know as Blindman’s Buff although, from contemporary accounts, it was far more violent. In this book Hildegard is caught up in a deadly game with murder as the penalty and only the Hangman can win.

“It is November 1382, the month of the dead, and Hildegard rides out from her priory in Swyne for the Abbey of Meaux. It is a time of rival popes, a boy king on the throne of England, and a shaky peace in the savage aftermath of Wat Tyler’s murder during the Great Rebellion. Hildgard has embarked on a perilous mission, to try to secure the future of her priory. Travelling alone, she encounters first a gibbet with five bloodied corpses hanging from it and then the butchered body of a youth. What do these gruesome deaths mean? Hildegard is determined to uncover the truth, no matte how dangerous it may be.”

In the pages of HANGMAN BLIND you can meet some of the characters who will play a part in later episodes