Crispin Guest is known as The Tracker. A former knight who lost his status due to a youthful rash decision, he has become an investigator who has a love/hate relationship with the sheriff. Crispin becomes involved when a man asks him to discover whether or not his wife is being unfaithful to him. Reluctantly he accepts the case but when he goes to report to the man that she is unfaithful, Crispin finds the man has been murdered. Since he has not been paid he vows to discover the murderer. One thing leads to another and national politics becomes part of the case. Crispin gets beaten a few times, thrown into the river, falls in love with the wife of the murdered man and works to untangle this mysterious web not the least of which is a fabric piece with the picture of a bearded man which supposedly has mysterious powers. It's a good fast read.
There were a few times I said to myself, "Nah, that couldn't have happened." But then I remembered knights were trained fighters, much better than the average felon.
I have the second book in this series and am looking forward to reading it.