As a brother/sister writing team, we brought different skills to the partnership. To make the story as authentic to the period as possible while still creating a fast-paced tale, we did extensive research to get the details right. However, some of the crimes and punishments were more particular to that era in Western Europe: simony (the buying and selling of church positions or benefits), excommunication (for crimes against the Church and its officers), and being armed with a sword within city walls or churches. Even though our book takes place more than 670 years ago, many of the crimes we featured in the plot are just as relevant today: murder, kidnapping, embezzlement, bribery, price-gouging, and theft by cutpurses (pickpockets in medieval vernacular). It’s fascinating (and rather appalling in some cases) that human nature never really changes. Since our book takes place in 1351-not long after the worst of the Black Plague and during the Hundred Years’ War between France and England-lawlessness reigned over wide swaths of Europe where civilization had been pushed to the brink, so the title is well-earned.
As the title of our new historical thriller The Lawless Land suggests, plenty of crimes are committed in the story.
