Nobody was poisoned at the dinner for the Society of Oliver Oil Producers of Baetica, though in retrospect this was quite a surprise... Inimitable sleuth Marcus Didius Falco is back with a vengeance. On one night, a man is killed and Rome's Chief of Spies left for dead. This leaves no one except Falco to conduct the investigation.

Marcus Didius Falco and his laddish friend Petronius find their local fountain has been blocked- by a gruesomely severed human hand. Soon other body parts are being found in the aqueducts and sewers. Public panic overcomes official indifference, and the Aventine partners are commissioned to investigate.

Three early tales of Brother Cadfael from the bestselling author Ellis Peters

Derek Jacobi reads this classic mystery from the Brother Cadfael chronicles

In his fourteenth chronicle Brother Cadfael's tranquil life as a herbalist is disturbed by the arrival of a saintly hermit and the disappearance of a young boy.