CROWNER'S CRUSADE

This is a ‘prequel’ to the fourteen previous Crowner John historical mystery novels, requested by many fans worldwide who wished for another story which would explain how Sir John de Wolfe came to be appointed as the first coroner for Devonshire.

After failing to recapture Jerusalem in the Third Crusade, King Richard the Lionheart sailed from the Holy Land in October 1192, eager to return to England and stop his brother John from seizing his crown. His ship was wrecked in the Adriatic and he attempted to travel overland with a handful of knights, including Sir John de Wolfe and his squire Gwyn.

In spite of John’s attempts to protect him, the king was seized near Vienna and imprisoned for a year and half, released only after the payment of a huge ransom. John had evaded capture in Austria and eventually reached home. When the king was released early in 1194, he rewarded John’s loyalty with an appointment as coroner in his home county of Devon.

Finding himself at odds with the local sheriff, who’s also his brother-in-law, as a crown coroner John has many legal duties, one of which is the investigation of sudden and suspicious deaths, which leads him into exciting and often dangerous situations.

Professor Bernard Knight, CBE, a former Home Office pathologist and Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Wales, is the author of more than twenty novels, a biography and numerous works of popular and academic non-fiction. The Crowner John Mysteries are published in the UK by Simon & Schuster and translation rights have been sold in the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Russia, and Romania. Bernard’s prequel to the Crowner John Mysteries, Crowner’s Crusade, was published by Severn House in September 2012.