[Hank]

A friend is looking for a book she loved but doesn't remember the title or the author. This is what she remembers of it:

The story line is scifi. It's based in the future and medieval times, its a crime,murder-ish mystery kind of book. A woman who earns money by playing a medieval based rpg game gets into trouble after winning lands that shouldn't exist within the game. Players enter the game by plugging into capsules (from what i remember somewhat like the matrix) and earn money from wining tournaments, beating monsters and other knights etc. From what I remember the main character is challenged to a dual and wins virtual lands that should not exist with-in the game. Odd things start occurring in both the virtual and real world. She decides to investigate after she is killed within the game after she refuses to give up or sell the land to an unknown knight. She enlists the help of a high level monk, in the game, in real life he is one of the designers of the game. This fellow in real life is restricted to a wheel chair. She also receives help from the manager of the game shop she plays at. As they discover there corrupted data and virus monsters and more places like that exist with-in the game that shouldn't and somehow these places have links to the real world and that someone one is using them to channel money through them ... i can't remember if that's exactly what they were being used for but I think the bad guys were using them to launder money. The main character have several adventures in the game, fighting virus dragons and other corrupted data beasts. The monk and main character develop a friendship and they discover the real criminal is actually the shop manger and that he had been using the game for other than its intended purpose.

Anyone have any ideas about what this might be?

[Lowlander]

Mhm, I'm not sure but could this be A Point of Honor by Dorothy J. Heydt ? The book was published in 1998 by DAW. It's out of print so you would have to look at Ebay or Abebooks to find this one.