From the publisher:
In 1352 the terrible legacy of the Black Death still lurks over the town of Cambridge. Fears of a future outbreak drive people to seek protection in the power of holy relics, while the University is once more the scene for violent clashes between students and townsfolk. Matthew Bartholomew, Michaelhouse teacher and publis physician, has a professional interest in order returning to the streets.

With rumours spreading about the discovery of a skeleton reputed to belong to a local martyr, a skeleton that even the physician cinfirms as human, a young student's brutal murder plunges the town into chaos, and Bartholomew must ask himself if the two corspes - and the rioting - are linked to something deeper than local enmities, and he finds himself embrouled in a nightmare of murder and revenge so terrifying that the whole town could be tainted with complicity.