This is the fifth outing for Swinfen's engaging post Black Death Oxford bookseller. Set around Christmas 1353 the setting is well realised with blizzards and biting cold. The central mystery about a group of troubadours was sufficiently intruiging to keep me reading, if the resolution was a bit pat. I like the central character even if I do wonder for how many more books Swinfen can string us along on the question of when he is going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Not quite comparable with Susannah Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew series set around the same time in Cambridge, but an entertaining read all the same. ( )