The best book: Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris, by Eric Jager.
Nothing under three stars.
A good reading month.
The best book: Blood Royal: A True Tale of Crime and Detection in Medieval Paris, by Eric Jager.
Nothing under three stars.
A good reading month.
I enjoyed this historical mystery, set in medieval Cambridge, but it did suffer from two problems. The plot was a little too twisty to be believable, and the villain had a bad case of "James Bond movie villain talking disease." He had our heroes cornered (with a guy with a crossbow fixed on them), and just blathered on and on and on about how clever he was. (Three guesses as to if he was caught, and the first two don't count.)
Aside from that, it was a nice immersion in 14th century Cambridge, a world of town vs. gown, where they dig saint's relics from the town sewer/drainage ditch/protective moat, and books are rare commodities indeed.
bookshelves: one-penny-wonder, paper-read, medieval5c-16c, britain-england, mystery-thriller, autumn-2011, bedside, historical-fiction
With flister Susanna reading #1 A Plague on Both Your Houses, I felt a yen for some more Matthew Bartholomew.
First line - ISOBEL WATKINS GLANCED FEARFULLY BEHIND HER for at least the fourth time since leaving the home of the wealthy merchant on Milne Street.