Dacre's War

Ten years after the Scottish defeat at Flodden, Adam Crozier leads his clan and a growing league of Border families. When he finally confirms that Lord Thomas Dacre, by then the strongest figure in northern England, had his father killed, Crozier resolves to avenge him. Eager to meet Dacre in open combat, he is talked out of it by his wife Louise, who argues for a cleverer approach.

Crozier instead sets out to bring Dacre down from within, using the workings of the English court as his weapon. Set along the contested frontier between Scotland and England, where peace seems never to take hold, the novel moves quickly through political scheming, personal grief and the lingering pull of old feuds.