Tallinn, Estonia, 1419. What links a prostitute, a Flemish painter and a tower watchman to a haunted house on Rataskaevu Street? All three claim to have seen a ghost near the house, and each of the three is found dead soon after.
Melchior Wakenstede, apothecary and assistant bailiff, is charged with unearthing the truth behind these seemingly supernatural murders. Is this, as some townspeople believe, the work of vengeful ghosts? of Satan himself? But when a pious and powerful old merchant dies, along with a castrated and disfigured tramp, Melchior perceives a more corporeal connection between the deaths.
Melchior must rise above the competing interests of merchant guilds, religious orders and Teutonic knights, to get to the bottom of the mystery
Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street is the latest English language translation of the Apothecary Melchior medieval mystery series that is the talk of Europe. Indrek Hargla is the Bernard Cornwell, Elis Peters and C. J. Sansom of the continent, and in his apothecary Melchior he has created a character to rival Brother Cadfael.