Baked to Death

The Middle Ages are coming to the quaint village of Snupperton Mumsley. In the fourth installment of Dean James' acclaimed mystery series starring Simon Kirby-Jones, a group of medieval enthusiasts known as the "Gesta Anglia Antiquae" set up camp for their annual gathering in the meadow behind Blitherington Hall. During their weeklong "faire," they'll live just as their medieval ancestors did. Simon Kirby-Jones, Snupperton Mumsley's resident vampire sleuth and trained medievalist, finds the whole notion amusing, but his assistant, Giles Blitherington, is less than pleased that the faire is taking place on land his family once owned. Giles fears that this mother, the volatile Lady Prunella, might cause trouble. Soon enough, however, murder will provide Giles with a suitably distracting complication. Simon finds a distraction of his own in the person of Tristan Lovelace, Simon's former lover and mentor in vampirism. Tristan has been retained by the businessman Murdo Millbank to advise him on matters medieval. Torn between his old feelings for Tris and his growing affection for Giles, Simon struggles to maintain an uneasy peace at Laurel Cottage as both Tris and Giles do their best to win him over. But at a dinner party one evening at the medieval pavilion of the eccentric Totsye Titchmarsh, Simon and cohorts must contend with something far more pressing than their romantic triangle: Luke de Montfort, Tristan's wealthy and ruthless former protege, has just collapsed on the ground. Someone poisoned him. Determined to unravel the mystery, Simon quickly discovers that he's dealing with a startling abundance of prime suspects--it seems virtually everyone had a compelling reason of one sort oranother for offing the insufferable Luke. Meanwhile, he really must stop beating around the bush and finally make a choice between Giles and Tris. But can he possibly risk telling Giles the truth about himself?