Roberta Rogow – författare

Halvar Danske, known as the Hireling, has come to Manatas to determine whether there's fraud afoot in the Feria. His master, the Al-Andalusian Calif Don Felipe, has had a letter from an old friend named Leon di Vicenza claiming part of the calif's share of the Feria's revenues is being funneled into unauthorized pockets.It's more than an omen when Halvar stumbles on a brutally murdered man his first morning in Manatas, and the day goes downhill from there. Is the corpse really Leon di Vincenza, or is someone staging a gigantic hoax? And what does Halvar's childhood love Dani Glick have to do with it?In this first pair of novellas, filk-artist and author Roberta Rogow introduces a world where Spain rules North America and a Danish soldier turned investigator is thrust into a place where the primitive nature of the surroundings is a sharp contrast to the sophisticated intrigue that plagues the island of Manatas.

If people would only stop trying to kill him, Halvar the Dane might finally manage to do what he was sent to the island of Manatas to do—get the fugitive Leon di Vicenza on a boat back to Al-Andalus.And he didn't intend to kill two people before breakfast in the process.However, once again murder and intrigue immerse the calif's Hireling in more trouble than he ever wanted; and before he learns who murdered the pawnbroker, the mystery will take enough twists and turns to make a good man dizzy.

As the fall Feria comes to a close, Halvar is ready to snatch Leon di Vicenza from the fratery and head back to Al-Andalus.No such luck.An Afrikan merchant dies of poisoning, and there are enough suspects to populate half of Manatas. Then a Bretain student is also murdered, and the Calif's Hireling is once again up to his boot tops in mystery.

It's not bad enough that Halvar is stuck in Manatas while Don Felipe is off exploring the New World. Now he's got a dead ship captain on his hands, a nobleman and his virago wife complaining about their living accommodations, and an enemy from his past who claims to be just passing through.The bodies, though, seem to keep piling up, while the clues continue to be elusive. There's something rotten going on, but finding out exactly what it is and whose killing people is turning out to be tougher than any job he's had so far.

There's no time for celebrating the holidays when a young messenger boy's corpse is discovered just outside Manatas. Snake had ambitions of bettering himself, but as Halvar, Selim, and the Town Guard seek for the lad's killer, they discover signs of a plot that could endanger the entire city.Then a noted master of mathematics is discovered dead in the Madrassa. Halvar's instincts tell him the two deaths are connected, but unearthing that link may present his most complicated puzzle to date. And, of course, make him a target for death yet again.

Ned Cooper had made plenty of enemies with his loud vocal attacks on every religion that wasn't his, but it didn't seem to Halvar that was enough to justify a knife in the back. Nevertheless, there he is—dead as one of his own barrels. Then Guardsman Zoltan meets a similar fate, and with even more suspects given his protection racket on the docks and his constant harassment of the women in the souk.Are these murders personal, or might they be connected to the muskets the captain of the Belle Fleur was smuggling into Manatas? Was Master Albrecht making gunpowder for those guns? Will Halvar still have a job after his contract expires on New Year's Day?The intrepid Dane is once again knee-deep in corpses and on the wrong end of pointed weapons. Can he solve all the mysteries before his term of office ends? And what will he do, stuck in Nova Mundum, if someone doesn't renew his contract?

There are too many Eyes on the prize.It was a simple job—find the naive outlander's lost journal, lost during a liaison with a local "e;joyboy"e;. It sounded liked her client was even more worried about the way he lost his book than he was about the book.But then the joyboy winds up dead, followed shortly thereafter by her client; and it's clear she's not the only one who wants that missing book. Worse, whoever it is, is prepared to kill her to make sure she doesn't find it.Pola's a loner, but this time it's clear she needs help—if only to make sure no one's sneaking up behind her with murderous intent.

Nothing is what it seems in the City of Lorr...Just ask Pola Drach, Independent Eye. In a city founded by refugees from a dying earth long ago, she pursues dark secrets and exposes the shadowy underbelly of society. Who killed the ambitious model? And was that who she really was? Who's forcing shopkeepers to buy worthless stock, and circulating funny money? Why is the youngest scion of one of the city's richest families suddenly a target?Most important for Pola—Who wants her dead?

It started simply enough—a missing young woman. Granted, there's no love lost between Pola and Captain Sara Atterson, but that's irrelevant. A job is a job. This one takes her deep into the world of artists and the theater, which is a different experience from digging in the closets of the wealthy. She's not impressed.Audra Martino was an innocent, drawn to causes to "e;save things"e;, as one fellow apprentice said. What happened to her after she left the gallery where her work was exhibited for the first time? And what happened to her sketchbook?There are secrets in the dark, and before Pola is done she'll go deep into more than one.