An Unholy Alliance

An Unholy Alliance by Gregory, Susanna. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780312147525.

Two years after the Black Death has decimated the population of England, a new killer is stalking the streets of Cambridge: a serial murderer preying on the women of the small town. Matthew Bartholomew, a physician with ideas ahead of his time and his companion, the portly monk Brother Michael, must uncover the identity of the killer before he strikes again. Meanwhile, bands of homeless peasants roam the land, shunning lives of virtual slavery in the fields, and turning instead to robbery and violence. The high death rate among priests and monks has left the people vulnerable to sinister cults that have grown up in the wake of the plague. During the course of their investigation, Bartholomew and Brother Michael are compelled to undertake the exhumation of a clerk, eavesdrop on a sinister meeting in an abandoned church, and engage in a hair-raising chase on horseback to save their lives as they close in on an evil coven taking advantage of the despair caused by the plague.