The first in a series of books that have taken Europe by storm and are soon to be filmed, featuring a chemist-turned-sleuth who battles ignorance and superstition—as well as killers—in a beautiful setting and in a gripping and mysterious era of historyThe Apothecary Melchior series plunges the reader into 15th-century Tallinn when Estonia is at the edge of Christian lands and the last foothold before the East: a town of foreign merchants and engineers, dominated by the mighty castle of Toompea and the construction of St Olaf's Church, soon to become the tallest building in the world. Apothecary Melchior is a divisive figure in the town: respected for his arcane knowledge and scientific curiosity but also slightly feared for his mystical witch-doctor aura. When a mysterious murder occurs in the castle, Melchior is called in to help find the killer and reveals a talent for detection. But Tallinn has a serial killer in its midst, and Melchior is tested to the limit in a...

Tallinn, 1419. What links the Keeper of the Tower, a prostitute and a Flemish painter to a haunted house on Rataskaevu Street? All three claim to have seen a ghost near the house, and each is found dead soon afterwards. Melchior Wakenstede, apothecary and assistant bailiff, is charged with unearthing the truth. With a cultivated sense for justice, Melchior investigates the deaths and attempts to find out whether, as the denizens of medieval Tallinn believe, ghosts can reap their revenge upon the living. When a powerful merchant dies, Melchior perceives a corporeal connection between this and the other deaths. As Melchior becomes embroiled in the conflicts and rivalries between religious orders, merchant guilds and Teutonic Knights, all vying with one another for control of the town, what he discovers is more incredible and more terrible than any ghost.