Distraught with the deaths of his wife and son at the hands of a serial killer, Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Redd took a year's leave. Driven with revenge Redd returns for duty, knowing he can gain inside information to track down the killer, nicknamed the Surgeon. Out for a morning's ramble, two young boys discover a gruesome murder. Redd and his new partner DS Felicity Dove are called to the scene. They are met with the strangely mutilated bodies of a young male and female. By their side is a pile of old bleached bones. Impaled on the male chest is a message written on parchment, the letters indecipherable. Redd suspects there is more than one perpetrator The whole scene smacks of ritual. After the police cuts it is difficult to find a profiler. The station counsellor recommends American forensic psychologist Doctor Tessa Davies, who is researching a new approach to profiling. A group of walkers stumble over the grisly remains of another young couple. In desperation, Redd asks Tess to join the team. The body count is rising, the crimes bizarre. Little do they realize the perpetrators have just begun. Their plans unimaginable.

Lady Isabella Winton has waited four years to marry her fiance, but each year Lord Alexander Fitzroy, Earl of Standford, a serving officer and a reformed rake, finds an excuse to delay the nuptials. This time, with the marriage set for the next month, he tells her he received an urgent message from his Colonel. He is needed in Belgium almost immediately. He warns her it may be dangerous for her to accompany him. Isabella realizes he is bluffing, things would not change so suddenly. Brussels is the centre of a social whirl with elaborate dinners and extravagant balls. Fearing Alex may have returned to his rakish ways and already installed a mistress, she insists on travelling with him. Caught in a whirl of arrangements for the wedding, Isabella is unaware that Lord Ladness, heir to a dukedom, is obsessed with her and will go to any lengths to possess her.

The Chaucer Encyclopedia provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the life, times, works, sources/analogues, and influence of Geoffrey Chaucer (b. 1340s – d. 1400). It also makes accessible the approaches readers have taken to understanding Chaucer's oeuvre, as well as the analogues and sources (direct or intermediary, contemporary or from the distant past) of Chaucer's works. Providing nearly 1400 entries, more than any similar work on the market today, The Chaucer Encyclopedia is the best source for a new generation of students and scholars. The Chaucer Encyclopedia includes material on: Important people, places, things, and concepts in Chaucer’s life and works that influenced and shaped him as a writer Chaucer’s influence on generations of writers after him, including authors around the world who continue to look to Chaucer’s texts for inspiration Various other topics that are of particular significance to those pursuing in-depth Chaucer scholarship The Chaucer Encyclopedia is an all-in-one resource for those interested in Geoffrey Chaucer. It is a key literary resource for undergraduate, graduate, and some secondary school students, teachers, and informed general readers.