The wonderful thing about so many mystery series is that they take us to a corner of time and/or life that we are unfamiliar with and introduce us to new characters and locations. Alan Gordon has given us the world of early 13th century France and our characters are members of the Fools Guild. Theo and Claudia travel around France with their baby daughter, Portia, and their young apprentice, Helga. As they go from village to village, they put on shows to support themselves. The guild has secret whistles to identify themselves and members offer them housing, though not always graciously. They offer to help a guild member who is now a monk and it seems that someone is after him for a long past transgression. Another monk is killed and the lines of a song are lettered on the wall in his blood. Theo is asked to track down the origin of the song and find out why someone is out for the monk. We follow them as they follow clues.

I really enjoyed this book and will be on the lookout for earlier books of this series. ( )