"publishers weekly" summarized the key plot points of the 12th-century novel, "a welsh lord captured by the english is to be exchanged for gilbert prestcote, sheriff of shropshire, who is held by the welsh. when prestcote dies in welsh hands, cadfael suspects murder and reveals the motives of the captors." they commented that "peters's local color is at its most engaging in the tangled family trees that sprawl across a contentious border."