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Candace Robb
Candace Robb
is the author of the Owen Archer mysteries (The Apothecary Rose, The Lady Chapel, The Nun's Tale, The King's Bishop and the short story The Bone Jar). The series is set in England in the late 14th century, with an ensemble of continuing characters supporting Owen Archer, former captain of archers for the Duke of Lancaster, now a spy for John Thoresby, Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England.
NEW
(released in the USA in September 1996)
The King's Bishop
The Fourth Owen Archer Mystery
The year is 1367. It is the end of a cold winter in Windsor, and the ageing King Edward is impatient. He wants his privy councillor, William of Wykeham, confirmed as Bishop of Winchester, but Pope Urban V is stalling, deterred by the man's wealth and political ambitions.
And so Owen Archer finds himself heading a deputation from York to Fountains Abbey, to win support for Wykeham from the powerful abbots of the Cistercian order. Ignoring the advice of this apothecary wife Lucie, he chooses his old comrade Ned Townley to lead the fellow company to Rievaulx. There has been a mysterious drowning at Windsor, and Ned travels under suspicion of murder; Owen hopes to prove his innocence.
His trust is quickly betrayed when trouble erupts in Ned's party only days out of York and first a friar, then Ned himself vanish, jeopardising the entire mission. The cause: another death at Windsor, this time in the household of Alice Perrers, the King's cunning and ambitious mistress.
So far from what seems to be
the root of the trouble, Owen must rely on John Thoresby, at Windsor
in his role as Lord Chancellor, to discover more. Initially pleased
to have the chance to lock horns with his old enemy Alice Perrers,
Thoresby soon regrets his involvement as he realises quite how
dangerous it might be...
'...Medieval sleuth Owen Archer investigates sinister deaths in the house of Windsor. A vivid portrait of fourteenth-century England which gives us a hero who is cunning and capable, whether navigating the Court or the open moors.' Time Out, London
'Bearded, one-eyed Owen Archer
is an endearing character, and Robb re-creates historical figures
like William of Wykeham, Edward III, and Alice Perrers with panache.'
The Bookseller, UK
Read the first chapter of The King's Bishop
Biography:
Candace Robb's graduate work in medieval literature was the inspiration for the historical setting; she now spends a month or two each year in the UK doing on-site research. All four Owen Archer mysteries have been on the fiction bestseller list in York and with The Nun's Tale the series hit the national lists in the UK. The fourth book in the series, The King's Bishop, was published in the UK in May and will appear in the US in October. Robb is presently working on The Riddle of St. Leonard's. The series is published in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., The Netherlands, Germany and France, and will soon appear in Spain, Sweden and Russia.
Robb lives in Seattle, where she was an editor of research publications at the University of Washington until finding her literary niche; she now writes full-time and teaches creative writing in UW's Extension College. She received her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.
She is a member of the Authors
Guild, the Medieval Academy of America, the Richard III Society,
the International Association of Crime Writers, the British Crime
Writers Association, Mystery Writers of America, and the American
Crime Writers League.
Editions:
The Apothecary Rose
First in series
St. Martin's Press 1993, Dead
Letter 1994; Heinemann & Mandarin 1994 (hardcover & paperback);
Bastei Lubbe 1994 (Die Rose des Apothekers) (paperback);
Librairie des Champes-Élysées 1995 (La Rose de
L'Apothicaire) (paperback); De Boerkerij 1995 (Gif voor
een pelgrim) (trade paperback)
The Lady Chapel
Second in series
St. Martin's Press 1994, Dead
Letter 1995; Heinemann & Mandarin 1994 (hardcover & paperback);
Bastei Lubbe 1995 (Die Kapelle des Erzbischofs) (paperback);
De Boerkerij 1996 (De gemantelde vrouw) (trade paperback);
Librairie des Champes-Élysées 1996 (paperback)
The Nun's Tale
Third in series
Heinemann & Mandarin 1995
(hardcover & paperback); St. Martin's Press 1995, Dead Letter
1996; Bastei Lubbe 1996 (paperback); De Boerkerij 1996 (De
gevleugelde non) (trade paperback)
The King's Bishop
Fourth in series
Heinemann & Mandarin 1996
(hardcover, paperback, and audio cassette); St. Martin's Press
1996, Dead Letter 1997
The Bone Jar,
Short story
No Alibi
1995; Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (forthcoming)
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