A Play of Heresy — Margaret Frazer

In the pages of Margaret Frazer's national bestselling Dame Frevisse novels, the player Joliffe assumes many roles on stage, to the delight of those he entertains. Now, in the company of a troupe of traveling performers, he finds himself triple cast in the roles of player, sleuth and spy...

In the early summer of 1438, Joliffe and his fellow players have arrived in Coventry for the theatrical and religious festival of Corpus Christi. Employed by several of the city's rich and powerful merchant guilds, they plan to present two of the many plays extravagantly depicting all of God's story with pomp and pageantry.

But even as his fellows prepare to perform the Nativity, Joliffe may be called on to play a wise man off the stage as well. When the merchant Master Kydwa goes missing and is presumed dead, another agent of the cunning Bishop Beaufort calls on Joliffe's skills as a spy to uncover the mysteries of Coventry's elite. As suspicions spread, possibly implicating his own companions, Joliffe is drawn toward the devilish machinations of a secret sect of heretics bent on destroying the Church. The players may be about to present the Harrowing of Hell, but will Joliffe be able to unravel a confession of corruption before Coventry's dark enigmas unleash a medieval massacre of the innocents?