It's more medieval mystery for people who laugh.

Number 1 best selling, prize winning Howard of Warwick is back with volume 12 of the Chronicles of Brother Hermitage; "this time it's historical."

Norman England is still full of real people; the incompetent, the hopeless and the just plain useless.

But what’s this? At the monastery of his friend Abbot Abbo, a young, naive and bookish monk is killed in chapter 1? Surely not? It can’t be.

The death of this particular monk sets off a chain of events that’s tangled to say the least. The news must be taken to Derby, home of Wat, erstwhile weaver of pornographic tapestry and Cwen, fierce and independent weaver in her own right.

Then the death must be investigated, of course it must, and the guilty held to account. But the guilty seem to be queuing up in this case, and show not the least sign of shame, let alone guilt. In fact, they’re quite proud of what they've done.

Brother Hermitage, the King’s Investigator, made a lot of enemies over the last 11 books. It was bound to go horribly wrong sooner or later. "Horrible" and "wrong" crop up quite often where Brother Hermitage is concerned.

But, you need to read the book if you want to make any sense of all this; even then, there are no guarantees.

Some people have said "hilarious", some have said "very, very funny," others have said "stupid" (the good and bad kind).

Nearly 100,000 people have succumbed to the nonsense that is Howard of Warwick. 1,000 reviews, Amazon number 1s, 5* littering the floor of the scriptorium? There must be something in it.

(May require prior reading of course HW101: medieval detection, the Hermitage years)