The King's Hounds

Description

The year is 1018 and the war with England is finally over, but the unified kingdom ruled by Cnut of Denmark is far from peaceful. Halfdan has lost everything to the war but his sense of humor. Once a proud nobleman, now he wanders the country aimlessly powered only by his considerable charm and some petty theft. When he finds an unlikely ally in Winston, a bookish former monk, the two set out together for Oxford, the seat of the new king. The pair's arrival in court coincides with news of a murder, and Cnut has an idea only a king could get away with: Why not enlist Halfdan and Winston - the Danish womanizer and the upright Saxon intellectual - to defuse a politically explosive situation? They're given just two days to solve the murder and they set off to uncover the truth, on the order of the king and with the reluctant assistance of the agitated townspeople.

Bestselling Danish novelist Martin Jensen was born in 1946 into a working-class family and worked as a teacher and a headmaster in Sweden and Denmark before becoming a full-time author in 1996. He and his wife collect mushrooms, enjoy bird watching, and are botany enthusiasts. Martin Jensen is the author of twenty-one novels. The King's Hounds is his first title to be published in English.

"Winston's intellectuality plays off of Halfdan's womanizing rogue...The casual brutality of the time as well as the politics are aptly portrayed, and the suspects plentiful." -Historical Novels Review