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This page lists novels that feature the investigator Halvar the Hireling.

Murders in Manatas

Roberta Rogow

2013

A Halvar the Hireling novel.

"No job is ever as simple as it seems. 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?"

Mayhem in Manatas

Roberta Rogow

2014

A Halvar the Hireling novel.

"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."

Mischief in Manatas

Roberta Rogow

2015

A Halvar the Hireling novel.

"The end is in sight. Or not. 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."

Menace in Manatas

Roberta Rogow

2016

A Halvar the Hireling novel.

"Who killed the captain? 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 noblewoman and his virago wife complaining about their living accommodations, and an enemy from his past who claims to be just passing through. Then the bodies just 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 said so far."

Malice in Manatas

Roberta Rogow

2017

A Halvar the Hireling novel.

"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 yet again."

Madness in Manatas

Roberta Rogow

2018

A Halvar the Hireling novel.

"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."