When newly qualified lawyer Gil Cunningham finds the body of a young woman in Glasgow Cathedral he is asked to investigate. He identifies the corpse as a woman he recognized at the May Day dancing in Glasgow Cross, the runaway wife of the cruel and unpleasant nobleman John Semphill. With Maistre Pierre, a French master mason involved in a new building at the Cathedral, Gil begins his search for the murder weapon in the lanes and yards of the city and to ask some difficult questions. His investigation leads him to Semphill and his household—his mistress and men-at-arms—dealing with the burgh constable, householders and musicians, as well as his feelings for the mason's lively daughter, Alys, whom he has come to find increasingly attractive. The complications of a second murder lead Gil and Pierre to the Isle of Bute. There Gil faces rumors of missing silver, a controversial elopement and the significance of a girl with a toothache, as well as a personal crisis around his family's expectations that he should join the priesthood. When the killer is finally exposed, justice strikes from an unexpected direction. A medieval murder mystery, The Harper's Quine picks up where Brother Cadfael left off.

Glasgow, 1492: Gil Cunningham remarked later that if he had known he would find a corpse in the university coal house, he would never have gone to the arts faculty feast. But then—as Alys his betrothed replied—he would never have met ... Socrates. In this mysterious adventure, Gil Cunningham and his colleagues are entertained by a play presented by some of the students at his old university for the Nicholas Feast. One of the actors, William Irvine, is later found murdered, and Gil, fresh from his success in solving the murder of the harper's quine, is the obvious person to investigate. Assisted by Alys and her father, Pierre, he begins to disentangle a complex web of espionage and blackmail involving William's tutors and fellow students. First one chamber and then another is ransacked before Gil himself is attacked. It appears someone is looking for missing papers. Oddly, the late William's wolfhound pup, Socrates, now becomes a focus for attention, and matters are complicated by the arrival of Gil's formidable mother, who is determined to inspect his betrothed. Little do Alys and Gil realize that it will be she who provides the vital key to unmask the murderer and his motives.

Gil Cunningham and an old acquaintance, Glasgow merchant Augie Morison, report the gruesome find of a severed head instead of an expected delivery of books. At the inquest, Morison is accused of murder and imprisoned. He appeals to Gil, who sets out to identify the dead man and establish the provenance of the treasure that lay beside him. The trail leads from the court of James IV at Stirling via a cooper's yard in Linlithgow, to another murder on the bare slopes of the Pentland Hills.

The warden of St Serf's has been found dead in the almshouse garden. He appears to have been killed during the night but there are those who are convinced he was present at that morning's service, and Gil Cunningham promptly finds himself entangled in the internal politics of the almshouse. The elderly residents, the almshouse nurse and Humphrey, her deranged favorite, have all been set against one another by the dead man's scheming—and then there is a discarded mistress and an almshouse ghost to consider as well. Tracing the dead man's last movements between the Cathedral precinct and the shores of the Clyde, Gil is both helped and hindered by his two sisters who have come to Glasgow for his wedding to Alys. Between them they widen the field of suspicion to embrace old friends from the university, a seaman home from a distant voyage, and mad Humphrey's brother. Then an uncanny event followed by the arrival of Gil's godfather, wedding guest and patron of the almshouse, precipitates the crisis. As so often, it is clever Alys who helps Gil find the ultimate solution to this mystery.

Gil Cunningham, a young notary, has escaped a life in the Church to become the archbishop’s questioner, only to be accused of causing a man’s death by witchcraft. Gil and his young wife must solve the mystery to save him.

In Sir William’s remote part of Scotland it seems almost possible that a young boy could have been stolen away by the fairies and returned forty years later without having visibly aged. And if the boy isn’t Davie Drummond, who is he? Then he suffers a succession of near-fatal “accidents.” Could there be a connection with four other local singers who have vanished, one of them with political information of value to Scotland’s enemies? Gil Cunningham and his wife Alys have been sent to Perthshire to investigate.

Gil Cunningham is the Archbishop’s questioner—his investigator. Nanty and Danny were rivals for the affection of Agnes, the apothecary’s daughter. Danny dies, apparently of poisoning, after drinking from his friend’s flask. But what was the poison? Is Nanty guilty? Then more murders ensue, and Gil’s wife, Alys, joins the investigation.

Gil Cunningham had hoped that the first time he set foot in the brothel on the Drygate it would also be his last, but by the time all was settled he felt quite at home within its artfully painted chambers. The bawdy house, along with the neighboring property, is offered to Gil and his wife Alys by the forceful Dame Isabella. But matters are confused by an outbreak of counterfeit coins in Glasgow, which Gil has been ordered to investigate. Then Dame Isabella is found dead in strange circumstances, and the more Gil pursues the cause of her death, the more false coins he finds. Rumors circulate that the Devil is abroad in Strathblane. By the time Gil and Alys have untangled matters, some very surprising?and sinister?things have come to light.

In the ninth Gil Cunningham mystery set in medieval Glasgow, the crime-solving notary investigates the slaying of a woman found dead outside a cathedral. Tied to St. Mungo's Cross by the cathedral, to be cured of her madness overnight by the saint, a young woman is found in the morning beaten and strangled, still tied to the cross. Who would flout the saint's protection like this? And who is stealing cathedral property? The crows are gathering about Glasgow, watching the movements of clergy and townspeople. Gil Cunningham must investigate the dead woman, track down the thieves, and identify the watchers in the shadows, particularly the elusive fourth person who holds the secret of what happened in the night. While his wife Alys deals with tensions within the family, Gil questions cathedral staff and apprentice boys, pilgrims and tradesmen, but he uncovers only more puzzles. And then there is another death. How are the murders connected?

'The tale seems very improbable,' Gil Cunningham said. 'How should the Devil enter a religious house and carry off one of its members?' How indeed? But Arnold Fleming, the widely dislike pensioner, or corrodian, lodged in the Dominican's house in Perth, has vanished from a chamber, and a local knight and his mistress claim to have seen the Devil abroad that very same night. Three of the friars are accused by their fellows of involvement, documents found in Fleming's lodgings suggest he was blackmailing somebody, and when Gil is called in to investigate, he reveals theft, ancient murder - and more recent secrets. Then a body turns up - then a second one. Are these deaths connected to Fleming's disappearance, or to the victim of his blackmailing activities? Gil's questioning uncovers some of the truth, but it is Alys who discovers the answer, with the help of the Dominicans' redoubtable lay-brothers and the priory kitchens. Praise for Pat 'Will do for Glasgow in the fifteenth century what Ellis Peters and her Brother Cadfael did for Shrewsbury in the twelfth.' Mystery Reader's Journal.