The Silent Abbey by Donald Strong

A dead man lies outside the walls of a secluded abbey. There is no blood, no trail through the mud, and no clear explanation for how he came to be there. When Sir Alaric arrives at Saint Bartholomew to investigate, he finds a community bound by ritual, obedience, and silence. The dead man, Edwin de Lacy, had come to the abbey searching for answers among its ancient records—and had begun asking questions that some would rather leave unanswered. With Edwin hastily buried and the monks reluctant to speak, Alaric turns his attention to the abbey’s ledgers, where old land claims, altered entries, and missing documents suggest that the mystery reaches far beyond a single death. At his side is Edwin’s determined sister, Lady Isolde, who has reasons of her own for refusing to let the matter rest. But in a place where written records carry the weight of truth, uncovering what happened means challenging not only the men who guard them, but the authority those records have protected for generations. The Silent Abbey is the first book in The Alaric Investigations, a historical mystery series following a former knight whose patience, observation, and refusal to accept convenient answers lead him into the secrets others have learned to leave buried.