In the summer of 1365, Owen Archer returns to York at the request of Archbishop Thoresby, to investigate the brutal murders of rival wool traders. By the author of Apothecary Rose. Robb, too, re-creates a version of 14th-century England with this second in the Owen Archer series (The Apothecary Rose, St. Martin's, 1993). Archer investigates the brutal murder of a merchant within the minster library at York. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. Owen Archer, apothecary apprentice and master spy, returns in a new fourteenth-century mystery involving palace intrigue and high treason. After Will Crounce, a prominent member of the powerful Mercer's Guild, is ruthlessly murdered, his severed hand is deposited in the lodgings of his best friend and business partner to serve as a warning and a threat to the close-knit community of wool merchants. Commissioned by Archbishop Thoresby to investigate the heinous crime, the redoubtable Archer becomes enmeshed in a perplexing web of avarice, chicanery, and deceit. When the assassinations and the mutilations begin to multiply and the evidence appears to implicate the king's much-despised mistress, Owen begins to fear for his own safety and well-being. Rich in authentic historical detail, this taut thriller will appeal to the growing legion of medieval mystery fans. Margaret Flanagan Commanded to investigate the murder of mercer's guildsman Will Crounce by his patron John Thoresby, the Machiavellian Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of the realm, Owen Archer (Apothecary Rose, 1993) finds intrigue high and low. Jasper de Melton, the orphaned apprentice who witnessed the murder, has disappeared. Crounce's business partner Gilbert Ridley, terrified by his discovery of Crounce's severed hand, has shrunk into a pitiable fear of his own death, which follows apace. Ridley's nearest and dearest, from his neglected wife to his son and heir to his ambitious, wife-beating son-in-law Paul Scorby, are locked in a struggle for control of Goldbetter and Company, the family business. Why has Martin Wirthir, Crounce and Ridley's unsavory go- between, offered to help Archer's wife, apothecary Lucie Wilton, find Jasper? And what have Goldbetter's troubles to do with the ailing King Edward III's dalliance with the scheming Alice Perrers, once Queen Philippa's favorite chambermaid, now her successor in the royal bedchamber? Before two more murders lead Owen and his allies to the truth, Robb reveals an elaborate network of corruption and revenge. A lovingly detailed background informs and animates the plot at every point instead of merely serving as an exotic setting. Robb puts the history back into the historical mystery. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. historical mystery novel set in 14th century York with Chaucerian details