This is a pretty short mystery to read through. Looks can be deceiving though. Despite being short, it’s packed in with some heavy duty stuff.

 

The setting for example. Very rich in detail and gives you a sense on how it was back then in William Falconer’s time. Add in some political intrigue, a Jewish Quarter, and some rioting and it gets pretty exciting. I really can’t get over how great the setting is. It’s so descriptive you can feel the darkness and the dampness that permeates throughout the novel. Morson also does an excellent job to stay close to historical accuracy here in this novel as well. Forensic pathology is frowned upon, and you even get to see Falconer try on a strange contraption that looks a lot like Medieval opera glasses at the time. :)

 

The plot is pretty straight forward although there is not much of a secret mystery element in it. The suspect list is not extensive (thankfully! You’ll see why as you read further into this review) and when revealed it’s not much of a surprise or an a ha! Moment. There isn’t much personality to the characters except Falconer and his student Thomas. Thomas is a particular dolt. A Farmer boy who managed to be gifted and chosen to study and be a Scholar, well, for all the idiotic moves he makes, you have to wonder how the University chose this guy to let him attend their school. He fumbles and stumbles at the worst times and always manages to get himself into some life threatening situations (and doesn’t learn from it). It was funny the first few times, but after a while it gets annoying and you want to slap this boy upside the head. (You don’t deserve Hannah’s attention, you twit).

 

I’m going to assume it will get better with other books in this series, and this one serves as an introduction to the series. Since I really do love the historical aspect I will stick with this series and see where it takes me. Historical mystery lovers will love the setting and theme of this book, the mystery part, not so much.

Master William Falconer tinkers with bird skeletons in a vain attempt to understand the princeples of flight in 1264 while Simon de Montfort prepares to challenge the authority of Henry III. Things are uneasy in Oxford and theres a lot of politics making some very strange bedfellows. When a servant girl is savagely murdered and Thomas Symon is a serious suspect as well as Falconer's student he feels it necessary to investigate and what he finds brings in heresy and a lot of politics. It's an interesting read, full of interesting characters and the politics are quite detailed.

I found this story of a murder more interesting for the details than the murder. Falconer is going slowly blind so this enabled his Knight Templar Shadow to follow him. When the chef of a political bishop is found dead, falconer has to work out who did it and why. A very powerful preacher is also involved but overall I didn't care much for the characters and I'm not really all that pushed about continuing the series, I will probably continue reading them but I have no urgency to hunt them up.

If you are going to enjoy this book, you really have to know a lot about Russian history and liteature. Otherwise, it's more or less pointless and probably extremely confusing. If you know a lot about those two things, it can be very amusing. I found the first part of this book, dealing with early history, the funniest. Parts of it were outright hilarious. Then the reading became very... slow. Probably because I only had the book as a PDF, and I hate reading on my computer. The contact ads are great, as are some dialogues about Russianess towards the end of the book. I did find it more difficult to follow when it became more Soviet-oriented, since many of the names were then unknown to me.

Master William Falconer tinkers with bird skeletons in a vain attempt to understand the princeples of flight in 1264 while Simon de Montfort prepares to challenge the authority of Henry III. Things are uneasy in Oxford and theres a lot of politics making some very strange bedfellows.When a servant girl is savagely murdered and Thomas Symon is a serious suspect as well as Falconer's student he feels it necessary to investigate and what he finds brings in heresy and a lot of politics.It's an interesting read, full of interesting characters and the politics are quite detailed.