The Cough of Birds — Brian Anderson

When Minneapolis private investigator Lyle Dahms visits a friend who makes armor at a rural Renaissance festival instead of a day of medieval merrymaking he witnesses a grisly murder, watching helplessly as one of the friend's colleagues is pinned to a wall by an arrow shot by an unseen assailant. Although warned to stay out of the case by the local constabulary, Dahms gets drawn in further and further as he uncovers drug dealing, crooked cops, infidelity, more deaths, and even stumbles into an unlikely chance at love with a comely and independent-minded barmaid. As lies and hidden agendas reveal themselves, Dahms must keep his wits about him as he navigates an unfamiliar bygone land of knights in armor, wandering jugglers, lusty wenches, strolling minstrels, and both gun-toting and broadsword-wielding adversaries. All that and, of course, something with which Dahms is all too familiar-murder.