The Stonemason's Tale: A scintillating historical adventure

by Ann Swinfen

Death is only a stone's throw away.

When a series of accidents begin to occur during the building of the chapel at Queen's College, they do not appear a cause for major concern. But they quickly grow more serious, and stonemasons are injured.

Nicholas Elyot becomes involved after it is discovered that an intruder has reached the college by way of his garden. And when Jordain Brinkylsworth's youngest student goes missing, it seems at first that his disappearance is unconnected...

Surely this serious and studious boy cannot be responsible for the troubles? But when a murder is committed, both Nicholas and Jordain must put their personal views aside to catch the killer, before they can strike again.

A totally immersive historical thriller, and the final tale in the Oxford Medieval Mysteries, perfect for fans of C. J. Sansom, S. J. Parris and D. V. Bishop.

302 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 22, 2021

About the author

Ann Swinfen spent her childhood partly in England and partly on the east coast of America. She read Classics and Mathematics at Oxford, where she married a fellow undergraduate, the historian David Swinfen. While bringing up their five children and studying for an MSc in Mathematics and a BA and PhD in English Literature, she had a variety of jobs, including university lecturer, translator, freelance journalist and software designer.

She served for nine years on the governing council of the Open University and for five years worked as a manager and editor in the technical author division of an international computer company, but gave up her full-time job to concentrate on her writing, while continuing part-time university teaching. In 1995 she founded Dundee Book Events, a voluntary organisation promoting books and authors to the general public.

Her first three novels, The Anniversary, The Travellers, and A Running Tide, all with a contemporary setting but also an historical resonance, were published by Random House, with translations into Dutch and German. Her fourth novel, The Testament of Mariam, marked something of a departure. Set in the first century, it recounts, from an unusual perspective, one of the most famous and yet ambiguous stories in human history. At the same time it explores life under a foreign occupying force, in lands still torn by conflict to this day. Her latest novel, Flood, is set in the fenlands of East Anglia during the seventeenth century, where the local people fought desperately to save their land from greedy and unscrupulous speculators.

She now lives on the northeast coast of Scotland, with her husband (formerly vice-principal of the University of Dundee), a cocker spaniel and two Maine Coon cats.