The House of the Red Slayer (1992)

It's amazing how many books you can read in 8 hours on a train...
A detective double act set in the early middle ages. John Cranston is the City of London's coroner, while Brother Athelstan is a priest with a troubled mind who just wants to do what's best. They are instructed to investigate the murder of the keeper of the Tower of London, and it all gets pretty grisly from there. Sir John is an unlikely man to hold office, always tending to be slightly drunk, but he's a good man at heart and between them they find a solution. Not until there have been a few more bodies piled up around the place though. Light relief, but probably doesn't stand up to rigorous scrutiny. ( )

I generally list books under the pseudonym used in writing, but Mr. Doherty switched to his real name after the second book and I wanted to keep the series together.

A fairly straightforward historical mystery. I'll read a couple more but I hope that they can step up and take the place of Ellis Peters' stories. ( )