The Falconer's Knot by Mary Hoffman

'What a lout!' whispered Sister Veronica. 'You'd think a man who can afford clothes and a horse like that would have better manners.'
It was not the sort of thing that nuns were supposed to say and Chiara was delighted to discover that Sister Veronica had this human side.
When Silvano, a sixteen year old noble, is suspected for a murder he did not commit, his father immediately sends him off to Giardinetto, to find safety in a monastery, until they can prove his innocence. There Silvano finds many things- friendship, love, and adventure- but not safety.

Chiara is under the protection of her brother. Her brother who cannot afford a dowry for her. So he sends her off to Giarinetto- to the home of the Poor Clares, to become a nun.
While she's there, Chiara meets Silvano, who's pretending to be a novice. She immediately sees through his disguise, and finds him to be a kindred spirit.

When people start dying, Silvano knows that he has to find the killer, before he is allowed to go home. But, at a home of the religious, who would kill another?

Then she saw with a shock that this corpse was the drunken man who had laughed at her and Sister Veronica on the road the day before. Chiara felt again how fragile life was, how a vigorous man could be snuffed out in an instant. The thought made her shudder.

The synopsis I provided for this book doesn't do it justice. There are so many interesting story lines, so many different plots and characters, that I think it'd be fairly impossible for me to list them in a timely manner.
On a whole, I enjoyed this book. It was fairly obvious to me who was the killer, and how everything was going to end up, but I enjoyed it anyway. The historical detail was very fascinating, and there was just enough romance to make it appeal in that area, as well. :)
I'd give this book four stars.

As the Minister General performed the committal, he looked around the graveyard and Bonsignore could tell he was thinking it too cramped for the needs of a house that was going to have a murder every week or so.