Superstition clouds the investigation into a dead body found outside a village church in this historical mystery from the author of Fallen Into the Pit.
A news photographer is found dead at the threshold of the church of Saint Eata, his hand extended to the door’s great cast-iron knocker. Surely it is not a coincidence when a second victim is discovered in eerily similar circumstances?
Legend holds that sinners who seize the knocker have their hands burned by the cold iron, but Gerry Bracewell didn’t die of burns, and neither did the second victim. Did they knock on death’s door, or is a more down-to-earth killer at large? Detective Chief Inspector George Felse watched the ceremony to rededicate the door, but little did he know that he would be called back to Mottisham to investigate murder. . . .
The Knocker on Death’s Door is the 10th book in the Felse Investigations, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Ellis Peters is a pseudonym of Edith Mary Pargeter (1913–1995), a British author whose Chronicles of Brother Cadfael are credited with popularizing the historical mystery. Cadfael, a Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey in the first half of the twelfth century, has been described as combining the curious mind of a scientist with the bravery of a knight-errant. The character has been adapted for television, and the books drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history.
Pargeter won an Edgar Award in 1963 for Death and the Joyful Woman, and in 1993 she won the Cartier Diamond Dagger, an annual award given by the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain. She was appointed officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1994, and in 1999 the British Crime Writers’ Association established the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award, later called the Ellis Peters Historical Award.