When Dr. Basil Bowen, the new Chairman of the English Department at Merryvale College, is murdered during the Canterbury Faire, an annual reenactment of Chaucer's Prologue of The Canterbury Tales; Dr. Emily Goldman, medieval scholar and popular professor on campus, helps police discover the identity of the killer and clears the name of one of her favorite students. Set on a small campus in central Alabama, most people assume Dr. Emily lives in her own little world of academia; however, she is a modern woman, a realist when it comes to "the way of the world." As she explains to her brilliant protege: "Jud, there is nothing you can tell me that will shock me. You may think that I've led a fairly sheltered life, but remember I'm a scholar of literature and history. I know all about man's inhumanity to man." But even Dr. Emily is shocked when the motivation and the identity of the murderer are finally revealed. Readers of mysteries and the classics will fall in love with Dr. Emily and her adored Scottie, Maxwell of Dumfries, better known as Max. She and Jess Thornton, a sexy Chief of Campus Police, are a formidable team."