Fool’s assassin. Robin Hobb. 2014.

To most revellers, Withywoods seems like a normal, well-run country estate in the backwaters of the Six Duchies. Tom Badgerlock has been living peaceably in the manor house with his beloved wife Molly for many years, the estate a reward to his family for loyal service to the crown.

But behind the facade of respectable middle-age lies a turbulent and violent past. FormTom Badgerlock is actually FitzChivalry, a royal bastard of the Fraser line, a user of forbidden magic, and an assassin. A man who risked much for his king and lost more……….

In his study, there is a reminder of his past: a memory stone carving of himself, his wolf and The Fool. Bonded by magic, they once moved as one. But the wolf is long dead, and the Fool has vanished. The contentment Fitz feels in his current life cannot erase that void.

Then one Winterfest night a messenger arrives to seek out Fitz, but mysteriously disappears, leaving nothing but a blood-trail. What was the message? Who was the sender? And what has happened to the messenger?

Suddenly Fitz’s violent old life erupts into the peace of his new world, and nothing and no one is safe.