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A Play of Heresy (2011)

by Margaret Frazer
(#7 in Joliffe the Player)

A FESTIVAL OF MURDER...

In the early summer of 1438, Joliffe and his fellow players have arrived in Coventry for the theatrical festival of Corpus Christi Day. Employed by one of the city's rich and powerful merchant guilds, they plan to present two of the many plays which will extravagantly depict all of God's Story in a parade of pomp and pageantry.

But even as they prepare to perform the Nativity, Joliffe may be called on to play a wise man off the stage as well. When the merchant Master Kydwa goes missing and is presumed dead, the cunning Bishop Beaufort calls on Joliffe's skills as a spy to uncover the mysteries of Coventry's elite. As suspicion falls on his own companions, Joliffe is drawn into the devilish machinations of a secret sect of heretics bent on destroying the Church. The players may be forced to present the harrowing of Hell, but will Joliffe be able to unravel a confession of corruption before Coventry's dark enigmas unleash a medieval massacre of the innocents?